NEW DELHI: The lone survivor among the 14 on board the Mi-17 V5 chopper that crashed on Wednesday, Group Captain
Varun Singh
has dodged death a second time while on duty.
Now battling for life in the military hospital at
Wellington
in
Tamil Nadu, the
IAF
officer had survived a life-threatening emergency while flying the indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft in October last year.
A
Shaurya Chakra
, the country’s third-highest gallantry medal, was conferred on him on Independence Day this year for his quick-thinking and actions during the emergency. At that time, he had little inkling that another tough test for survival awaited him just a few months away.
Group Captain Singh was on board the ill-fated chopper as he was the liaison officer for the visit of chief of defence staff General
Bipin Rawat to the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington. He’s currently posted as an instructor there.
His gallantry medal came when he was a Wing Commander with the Tejas fighter squadron of the IAF. He was on a test sortie on the newly-inducted Tejas jet on October 20 last year to check out the aircraft’s “flight control system and pressurisation system”.
But while flying at a high altitude, the fighter’s pressurisation system failed.
Group Captain
managed to identify the problem and initiated descent to a lower altitude for landing. But more challenges awaited him. During descent, the flight control system failed as well, leading to a total loss of control of the aircraft.
The aircraft lost altitude rapidly, and even as it was pitching up and down viciously, Group Captain regained control. This also happened a second time but instead of abandoning the aircraft and ejecting, he chose to bring it under control and land it safely.
This action of his, said his Shaurya Chakra citation, “allowed an accurate analysis of the fault on the indigenously designed fighter and further institution of preventive measures against recurrence”.