Two Indian military jets crash in mid air after apparent collision

Two Indian military jets crash in mid-air after apparent collision

Rescue operations are underway in the state of Madhya Pradesh in support of the pilots of the Sukhoi-30 and Mirage 2000.

Two Indian Air Force fighter jets have crashed after an apparent mid-air collision during an exercise some 300 km (185 miles) south of the capital New Delhi.

Both planes took off from Gwalior Air Force Base about 50 km (30 miles) east of their landing site on Saturday morning.

“We located the wreckage of one of the planes and found an injured pilot in the forests of Pahadgarh,” official Dharmender Gaur told AFP.

“The other plane probably fell farther from the spot and we sent teams to locate it.”

Meanwhile, local administrator Ankit Asthana told Portal that two of the three crew members on a jet were rescued and taken to hospital.

The status of the third crew member was not immediately clear, and no details about the crew of the second aircraft were released.

The planes that crashed in India’s Madhya Pradesh state were a Sukhoi-30 and a Mirage 2000, the ANI news agency said in a tweet, citing defense sources.

Saturday is the latest in a string of plane crashes involving the Indian military air fleet.

Five army soldiers were killed last October when their helicopter crashed in the state of Arunachal Pradesh near the country’s militarized and disputed border with China.

It was the second military helicopter crash in the northeastern state this month, after a Cheetah helicopter crashed near the town of Tawang, killing its pilot.

India’s defense chief, General Bipin Rawat, was among 13 people killed when his Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter crashed while he was transporting it to an airbase in December 2021.