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"Some remains of Squadron Leader D.S. Tomar
were recovered near the Gangstang glacier in the
Chokhang hills (in Lahaul and Spiti district)
Saturday," Western Air Command (WAC) spokesman
Wing Commander S.K. Mehta told IANS over telephone
from New Delhi.
He said Tomar's family has been informed about
his death.
"Some more parts of the engine, wings and
cockpit, but smaller in size, have been recovered
in the area. Now the search is on to locate the
data recorder (black box)," he said.
The MiG-29 was on a night mission Oct 18 after
taking off from Adampur for Jalandhar in Punjab.
It crashed at elevations ranging from 15,000 to
20,000 feet above sea level.
Wg Cdr Mehta said prime facie it seemed that
the jet disintegrated.
IAF sources told India Strategic that the pilot,
flying with a buddy in another aircraft, was descending
when it hit head on into a mountain top, possibly
due to disorientation, a factor common during
night flying. The Squadron Leader Tomar was regarded
though as a good pilot and officer.
The aircraft plunged 12 feet deep in to snow,
and due to the heat of the aircraft’s twin
engines, there were initially some burn marks,
then more snow due to the weather, and after that
formation of hard ice.
Air Officer Commander in Chief of the Western
Air Command (A)C-in-C), Air Marshal D C Kumaria,
ordered a 24 x 7 Search and Rescue (SAR) mission,
and nearly 100 officers and men, as well as local
mountain climbers and sniffer dogs were heli-dropped
in the area despite the extremely bad weather
and fear of avalanches. Army and the civil administration
lent their helping hands.
It was in fact one of the biggest and toughest
rescue missions ever undertaken by the IAF. Besides
the weather, soft, sinking snow, and the gradient
of 70 to 80 degrees posed extremely tough challenges
for the safety of rescuers themselves.
An IAF officer observed: "The pilot seems
to have got disoriented and slammed right into
a peak. Till the moment of impact, the fighter
plane was working perfectly and everything happened
so suddenly that the pilot didn't have the chance
to react," the officer said, adding "the
exact reasons would only be known after the recovery
of the black box"."
It had deployed several front-line aircraft,
Cheetah and Chetak helicopters besides UAVs to
comb Chokhang hills, 40 km from district headquarters
Keylong.
Wg Cdr Mehta said ground combing would continue
till "we reach to the bottom of the case".
A number of expert mountaineers and climbers
have been deployed in the search, mainly focused
on the Gangstang glacier in the peaks above Chokhang
village. "We are fighting against all odds
- hostile weather, steep gradients, narrow gorges
and crevices. Things are little bit difficult,
but we have to complete the mission at all cost."
Search teams from the Army’s High Altitude
Warfare School (HAWS) in Gulmarg and the Ladakh
Scouts have been digging in the snow to locate
the wreckage.
"The searchers had zeroed in on a 200 sq
feet area that they believe is the crash spot.
But frequent snowfall has blanketed the entire
wreckage," he said.
It appeared that the aircraft hit one of the
peaks head on at a speed of around 900 km and
disintegrated and its fragments were scattered
on either side of a ridge, said IAF sources.
Sq Ldr Tomar's jet was part of two-aircraft formation
that was returning to the Adampur base camp after
night flying. The only indication that the second
pilot got was the bright flash of light when they
were flying above the Lahaul Valley before the
crash.
Some villagers of Thirot, near Keylong town,
were the first to spot some burnt pieces of the
aircraft in Chokhang and brought in these parts
to the administration.
(IANS)
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