Indian Air Force Chief, Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria on Wednesday tooks a MiG-21 aircraft of the 51 Squadron to flight to mark the first anniversary of the Balakot airstrikes.
Indian Air Force Chief, Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria on Wednesday tooks a MiG-21 aircraft of the 51 Squadron to flight to mark the first anniversary of the Balakot airstrikes.
The IAF chief flew a sortie in the aircraft that took off from the Srinagar air base in J&K. Two Mirage-2000 and two Sukhoi-30MKI jets also accompanied him and flew in the same formation that in which Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman' downed a Pakistani F-16 aircraft during aerial combat in 2019.
"The message is clear that it will no longer be a status quo, if there is an attack orchestrated from across the border there will be a response and it will be a robust response," the Air Chief was quoted by ANI as saying.
"Today is the Balakot anniversary. So, it was really to get back to the boys to spend some time with them, fly a mission with them," he said.
The 51 Squadron is the same unit that was activated after Pakistan tried to target Indian military installations in Jammu and Kashmir the next day of Balakot airstrikes.
In a pre-dawn strike on February 26, 2019, Indian Air Force's (IAF) IAF's Mirage 2000 fighter jets crossed the Line of Control (LoC) and pounded the terror camps in Balakot, Muzaffarabad and Chakoti in a well-planned operation destroying Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror camps.
The strikes were carried out in retaliation to the February 14 attack in the Pulwama district of Kashmir where a convoy of vehicles carrying CRPF security personnel on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway was attacked by a vehicle-borne suicide bomber. 40 jawans were martyred in the attack which is defined as one of the deadliest terror strikes in India in recent times.
In the aerial dogfight that followed, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, flying a MiG-21 Bison fighter jet, engaged and shot down a much-advanced F-16 of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF). However, chasing Pakistani jets, he crossed over to PoK where his aircraft was hit. He was taken into custody by Pakistan.
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 "Balakot airstrikes anniversary: IAF Chief flies MiG-21 aircraft")
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