An Indian Air Force (IAF) flight on a training mission from Hakimpet Air Force Station in Hyderabad crashed on Wednesday morning. The pilot escaped the crash with minor injuries and is reportedly safe.
The Kiran MK2 aircraft manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is a two-seat jet trainer and crashed near Purietta village at Yadagiriguda district. “The flight crashed at Bhowpet open land and no one was affected. The fire department put out the fire and the pilot sustained only a small injury. The IAF doctors arrived in a helicopter and airlifted him base to their base,” said Mahesh M Baghwath, Rachakonda Police Commissioner to TNM.
The pilot has been identified as Yogesh from Uttar Pradesh. “A Kiran aircraft which took off from Air Force Station, Hakimpet on a routine training mission crashed today morning. The trainee pilot ejected safely. A Court of Inquiry (CoI) will investigate the cause of the accident,” said G Surendra Babu, spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence.
“The pilot was flying solo and the flight was manufactured by HAL Bengaluru, designed in 1960 and IAF use the flight for training missions. The crash could either be due to the pilot's mistake or due to maintenance issues. Earlier times also there has been crashed," IAF sources told Deccan Chronicle.
This is the second training aircraft to crash within Hyderabad city limits in the last eight days. On November 21, a training aircraft flying from Begumpet airport crashed into a field in Mokila village near Hyderabad’s Shankarpally. The pilot of that flight 30-year-old Bharat Bhushan is pursuing aviation training at the Rajiv Gandhi Aviation Academy at Begumpet, he escaped the crash with a minor injury to his left eye.
In October 2017 an aircraft’s door fell off in a residential area in Lalaguda near Secunderabad and then crashed into a building. Fortunately, there were no casualties and no one suffered injuries. The plane was operated by the Telangana State Aviation Academy. Following this, the Director General of Civil Aviation launched an investigation into the incident. The results of this inquiry have not been made known yet.
In September 2017, an Indian Air Force training aircraft had crashed near Hyderabad and the entire aircraft was engulfed in fire. The pilot had, however, safely ejected before the flight crashed at a secluded place 2 km from Hakimpet.