Madhya Pradesh: Parts of two IAF jets that crashed in Madhya Pradesh's Morena district have been found in the wreckage. Officials have recovered the black box of Mirage 2000 and a part of the flight data recorded of Sukhoi-30MKI.
Both had taken off from the Gwalior Air Force station.
A black box, or the flight data recorder, is an electronic recording device that is part of the aircraft. It is meant to help provide information on what happened during an accident. Defence experts think the Russian-designed Sukhoi-30MKI jet and the French Mirage-2000 may have collided up in the air. The IAF did not comment on the incident. Officials said a high-level probe has been ordered.
The two frontline combat aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) crashed during a training session on Saturday. A wing commander - the Mirage aircraft's pilot Hanumanth Rao Sarathi - died in the incident. The two pilots of the Sukhoi aircraft were able to eject safely and were taken to the hospital.
Collector Ankit Asthana said debris from both aircraft fell in the Pahargarh area. Some also fell in Rajasthan's Bharatpur which is a border town. Several departments including the IAF and police are searching for the remaining part of the Sukhoi aircraft recorder. They suspect that it may have fallen in Bharatpur, reported PTI.
An aviation expert said that it was the first Mirage 2000 and Sukhoi-30MKI that IAF lost in a mid-air collision. The SU-30MKI is a twin-seater combat jet and the Mirage 2000 is a single-seater aircraft.