A Indian Military Fighter Jet Lands On A Civilian Highway For A Quite Justified Reason
An Indian military fighter jet made a picture-perfect landing on a civilian highway in the country. Though it might seem bizarre for an aircraft to use a highway as an airstrip, the Indian Air Force (AIF) had a very justifiable reason for undertaking such a daring stunt.
A Mirage-2000 fighter jet belonging to the IAF, landed on the Yamuna Expressway near Delhi. While it may seem to be an action scene straight out of some movie, the Air Force was testing the use national highways as emergency landing strips.
It’s undoubtedly a first for military aviation in India, but the Air Force was mulling the idea for quite some time. Recently a Hercules C-130, a ginormous military transport aircraft built by Lockheed Martin landed on a short airstrip in Mumbai to ensure that military aircraft could land on alternate and non-optimum airstrips in case the primary landing strips or airports were compromised or destroyed.
With similar intentions, the fighter jet flew in from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh at 6:40 a.m. IST, skimmed the highway and landed very briefly before taking off again, confirmed a statement from the IAF,
“The aircraft made a practice approach on the highway, coming down to a height of 100 meters before landing off the next approach,”
Though a civilian highway was used to practice the emergency landing, it was expertly cordoned off IAF helicopters which made several rounds earlier and air force personnel who cleared the area long before the jet approached. Additionally, the highway strip was essentially converted into a makeshift airstrip by deploying a temporary Air Traffic Control room. Bird-watchers were deployed to rid the region of any avian threat and multiple rescue vehicles lined the stretch of the cordoned-off highway.
Mirage 2000 lands on Yamuna Expressway. pic.twitter.com/rpWPrvkEG9
— A. Bharat Bhushan Babu (@SpokespersonMoD) May 21, 2015
IAF preferred to call the entire run a practice drill and this was the first phase in which a fighter jet was made to land on a highway, shared a spokesperson,
“It was a practice drill to scope out possible landing strips on the national highway for fighter planes in case of an emergency. It was basically a capability demonstration. IAF has plans to activate more such stretches on highways in the future.”
It is a common practice across the world to identify and maintain specific stretches of highways to be used as emergency landing strips should the ideal places are unavailable. This is because, airbases are the most common and often the first locations that are bombed during wartime.
[Image Credit | The Economic Times]
