RE:Kudos
by krishnamurthy ramesh on Nov 01, 2007 01:29 PM Permalink
While I admire the skill of the pilot I am amazed at the level of cleaniness around our civil and defence air fields.Slaughter houses ,slums, carbage dumps around them make it totally unsafe,Bird hits etc etc result in loss of lives IAF has or would have lost more precious lives in these accidents than in war.We should take paramount care in these matters.Politicians will protect slums(vote banks)
The impact of the touchdown on concrete hardly favoured Nirmal's ankle.Meanwhile, his erstwhile chariot got strewn on the runway he thus veritablly blocking it all for practical purposes of aviation !
The other aircraft in the air suddenly found themselves stranded with varying degrees of flying endurance depending on the times they had taken off. One of them another solo trainee pilot had just done the mandatory overshoot and was on circuit when as if all hell broke loose.
It would take time to get the other runway activated, exactly the parameter the fuel guzzling jet was not very kind to. Communication was at a premium as all the safety services were working with a focus on account of what had happened.
Murphy, chose to snag the radio of the trainee at the vey moment and his lack of experience and fertile imagination juxtaposed into an assumption that his calls are not being attended to for the moment. With such a noble mindset it wasn't long before he was face to face with a flashing fuel low level warning light, somehow somebody raised him on the alternate channel, the flying supervisor in ATC had also done the calculation on his behalf and didn't need a light in front of him to set the alarms ringing. It was known to both that he barely had enough juice for landing !
Even as I rounded off for the touchdown, I knew this was one landing I couldn't possibly baulk. The uneventfulness of the touchdown was the event of a lifetime !
Bravo Nirmal... the lefe/death decision in 11 secs... no match...anybody else cud have succumbed to heart failure... Our Military (AF/Navy/Army) is the best !!! Hail India !!!
The presence of mind at the required time and the bravery is above all praises.
I'm sure that most the pilots in IAF have faced some issues like this in their life using End of Life planes (some of them have reached beyond EOL) and many have paid dearly for it.
Where as our so called politicians are busy in dissecting the country and selling to our neighbors and swelling their own pockets.
Where are the advance training jet, the IAF is eagerly waiting for.
