The body of Wing Commander Hanumanth Rao Sarathi arrived in Belagavi on the afternoon of Sunday, January 29, a day after he was killed in a plane crash between Sukhoi-30MKI and Mirage-2000 aircraft in Madhya Pradesh. The two frontline combat aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) crashed during a training mission in Madhya Pradesh's Morena district on Saturday, resulting in the death of Wing Commander Sarathi while two other pilots ejected safely. Sarathi's body was flown in by a special IAF plane and it will be later taken to his home in Ganeshpur.
A pall of gloom descended at the residence of Wing Commander Sarathi, an instructor at Tactics and Air Combat Development Establishment (TAC-DE) in Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior. The family members and relatives were inconsolable with his untimely demise. The 35-year-old pilot is survived by his wife, a three-year-old daughter and a one-year-old son. The IAF officer comes from a defence background. Sarathi's father Revansiddappa Sarathi is a retired honorary captain and brother Praveen Sarathi is a serving Group Captain.
The black box of Mirage 2000 and a part of the flight data recorder of the Sukhoi-30MKI jet have been found in the wreckage of the crash, an official said on Sunday. Defence experts have said it is probable that the Russian-designed Sukhoi-30MKI jet and the French Mirage-2000 had a mid-air collision, but there was no official comment on it from the IAF. Morena Collector Ankit Asthana on Saturday said the debris of both aircraft fell in the Pahargarh area of the district. Some debris also fell in Rajasthan's Bharatpur, which borders Madhya Pradesh, he had said.
A black box, or the flight data recorder, is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft and helps in the investigation of flight accidents. "The black box of the Mirage aircraft has been found from the wreckage in the Pahargarh area of Morena. A part of the Sukhoi aircraft's black box has also been found and the remaining part of the recorder might have fallen in Bharatpur," Morena Superintendent of Police Ashutosh Bagri told PTI. "The IAF, police and other departments are searching for the remaining part of the Sukhoi aircraft recorder," he said.
A high-level probe has been ordered into the accident, officials earlier said. While the Mirage aircraft's pilot, identified as Wing Commander Hanumanth Rao Sarathi, died in the accident, the two pilots of the Sukhoi aircraft managed to eject and were taken to a military hospital, they had said.
According to an aviation expert, it was the first Mirage 2000 as well as Sukhoi-30MKI that the IAF lost in a mid-air collision. The SU-30MKI is a twin-seater combat jet, while the Mirage 2000, manufactured by French aerospace major Dassault Aviation, is a single-seater aircraft. Both the jets had taken off from the Gwalior Air Force station. The base has squadrons of both Sukhoi-30MKIs and the Mirage 2000 jets.