India
DNA accesses details of dogfight, from the time Pak jets took off to Wg Cdr's MiG-21 Bison shooting down a Pak
Updated : Mar 08, 2019, 12:24 PM IST
Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was captured by Pakistani forces after he ejected from his plane when it took a hit on February 27. The Pakistani jets had tried to target Indian military installations a day after Indian Mirage-2000 jets bombed a Jaish-e-Mohammed terror camp at Balakot in a cross-border air strike.
Varthaman won many hearts for his exemplary courage in bringing down a Pak F-16 in a dogfight. According to a detailed 16-minute account of the dogfight from highly placed sources, DNA learnt the brave heart had the option to return to his base but went ahead full throttle, bringing the enemy fighter down.
The pilot, who was flying MiG-21 Bison and another officer who was flying Sukhoi 30MKI, engaged one of the ten F-16s that violated Indian air space on Wednesday morning. While nine falcons were forced to deviate path after a valiant fight from Indian jets, one F-16 went deep inside Indian territory. The MiG-21 Bison (Wing Commander Abhinandan's) and Sukhoi MKI continued engaging the F16 in a dog fight manoeuvre called 'defensive split'. In this scenario, MiG 21 was in the front, then F16 and then the Sukhoi. Due to firing from the Sukhoi, the F16 fled the scene using another dog fight manoeuvre called the 'wingover'.
While the Sukhoi hovered over the oil storage the F-16 had aimed to destroy, the 35-year-old hero chased the jet out of Indian territory. "While chasing he engaged F-16 in a lock-in position for his onboard R-73 air to air missile to be deployed, an act of extreme valour by Wing Commander Abhinandan. He could have returned to base and if he had, then the missile lock-in would have been disengaged (due to out of radar coverage) and he would not have been able to shoot the enemy jet." He, however, decided to chase it down to POK, and bring it down.
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