VASCO: A MiG-29 K fighter jet of the Indian Navy which is currently integrated on-board aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya and which was on a routine sortie at Indian Naval Air Station(INS) Hansa veered off the runway and crashed 150 metres at the site before catching fire on Wednesday afternoon. The lone pilot ejected after smoke started emanating from the aircraft before it caught fire.
Fire fighters from Indian Navy and from other establishments including Goa Shipyard etc rushed to the site and brought the fire under control. Surprisingly, Navy did not seek any help from Fire & Emergency Services of Government of Goa.
As per the reports by Navy officials, the incident was reported at around 12.10 pm when a MiG-29 K while took off for a routine sortie and developed a technical snag and went off the runway. The pilot ejected from the aircraft safely and was immediately shifted to the Naval Hospital for routine medical management. An inquiry in the incident has been ordered by naval authorities.
“This is the first main incident of the MiG-29K since the time it was inducted. There was no loss to life in the incident and investigation will reveal the actual cause of accident. Initial inquiries have reveals that when the pilot was taking off, there was some malfunction in the aircraft (under investigation) and the craft could not take off and with the result he continued in the direction of take off and left the runway at the other end,” said Flag Officer Commanding Goa Naval Area Rear Admiral Puneet K Bahl.
He said, “The pilot crossed over the other end and luckily the aircraft then retarded and about 150 metres of the edge of runway he turned left and stopped there. After that the pilot descended from canopy and he came out of the aircraft and there was little fire and smoke at the aircraft, which is now put under the control”.
When asked whether it was a human or machine error, Bahl said, “It is too premature to say whether this is human error or machine error because we have to do investigations which will take some time. Investigation will depend on the evidences like Flight Data Recorder and Video recording. As of now what we know is that the aircraft had a malfunction. What is the source of error whether it is machine or something else; we will come to know only after inquiry. We have two version of MiG-29K and this was a single pilot version,” Bahl added.
Meanwhile, speaking to Herald one eyewitness who was working on a rooftop of a under construction building close to the naval compound wall said that he saw the pilot jumping out from the aircraft and running towards the runway soon after smoke started emanating from the aircraft. “Normally these aircrafts makes huge noise so while carrying out my work I was looking at the aircraft which suddenly veered off the runway and there was a big sound followed by smoke and fire. For few minutes there was only smoke but before the fire tenders could reach the craft caught fire on the front side,” Mustafa Shaikh, a construction worker told.
