Two Indian Air Force fighter jets crashed on Saturday in an apparent mid-air collision during exercises 300km south of the capital New Delhi.
According to defence sources quoted in Indian media, a Sukhoi Su-30 and a Mirage 2000 went down during exercises over the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
The Su-30 jet had two pilots on board and the Mirage had one, the sources told The Times of India.
“We have located the wreckage of one of the planes and found an injured pilot in the Parhadgarh forests,” police officer Dharmender Gaur told AFP.
“The other plane has likely fallen further away from the site and we have sent teams to locate it.”
The crash is the latest in a string of aviation accidents involving India's military air fleet.
Five army soldiers were killed last October when their helicopter crashed in Arunachal Pradesh state, near the country's militarised and disputed border with China.
It was the second military helicopter crash in the state that month, coming weeks after a Cheetah helicopter came down near the town of Tawang, killing its pilot.
Defence chief Gen Bipin Rawat was among 13 people killed when his Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter crashed while transporting him to an air force base in December 2021.
Source: The National
Image: AFP
