Madhya Pradesh: Two Indian Air Force Fighter Aircraft Crash Near Gwalior, One Pilot Killed

Two Indian Air Force (IAF) figher aircraft were involved in an accident in Madhya Pradesh on Saturday, said the IAF.

One of the three pilots involved in the accident was killed, said IAF in a statement on Twitter.

The IAF said, "Two fighter aircraft of IAF were involved in an accident near Gwalior today morning. The aircraft were on routine operational flying training mission. One of the three pilots involved sustained fatal injuries. An inquiry has been ordered to determine the cause of the accident."

Separately, Morena SP told ANI, "Two jets -Mirage & Sukhoi- took off from Gwalior in the morning...As per IAF, one aircraft had two pilots, while the other had one; two safely rescued, body parts of third found. Some parts of the jet were found in Bharatpur (Rajasthan), details being collected."

The PTI earlier reported that preliminary reports suggested that one aircraft fell in Morena in Madhya Pradesh and other reportedly went down in the general area around Bharatpur, as per sources. Gwalior and Morena in MP and Bharatpur  in Rajasthan are in close vicinity. 

Earlier, there were reports of crashes in Morena in Madhya Pradesh and Bharatpur in Rajasthan. It was not initially confirmed if these were two separate incidents or one. ANI first reported that Bharatpur District Collector Alok Ranjan initially said a charter jet has crashed in the district but defence sources later told ANI that the crashed airfraft were two IAF fighter planes that took off from the Gwalior air base. 

In a later update, ANI shared visuals and reported, "Wreckage seen. A Sukhoi-30 and Mirage 2000 aircraft crashed near Morena, Madhya Pradesh. Search and rescue operations launched. The two aircraft had taken off from the Gwalior air base where an exercise was going on."

(With PTI inputs)