Two fighter jets of the Indian Air Force (IAF) crashed in the state of Madhya Pradesh during a routine exercise, JEE News reported on Saturday.
A search and rescue operation is underway, the publication said. However, the details of the casualties were not received till the time of writing this report.
The downed jets included a Sukhoi Su-30 and a Mirage 2000 that had taken off from the Gwalior Air Force Base, JEE News reported.
Soon after the crash, videos surfaced of the wreckage of the crashed jets strewn on the ground in the Morena area.
Meanwhile, the Indian Army has set up a court of inquiry to probe the incident. The body will inquire whether the two jets witnessed a mid-air collision.
“The SU30 had 2 pilots while the Mirage had one pilot when it crashed in 2000. Initial reports suggest that the 2 pilots are safe while an IAF helicopter will soon reach the location of the third pilot,” the publication said. Defense sources said.
Five Indian soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash.
In October last year, five Indian Army soldiers were killed when their helicopter crashed near the country’s disputed border with China, the second such fatal accident in the region this month. The defense said.
The advanced light helicopter came down south of Tooting, a remote town near the Line of Actual Control that divides India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh from Chinese territory.
The ministry said in a statement that air traffic controllers had received a May Day call before the crash indicating a technical or mechanical malfunction.
The accident came weeks after an Indian Army pilot was killed during a routine flight in a Cheetah helicopter at Tawang, further east of the state.
This was the second accident of an Army Cheetah helicopter in India in 2022. The first incident occurred in March near the Line of Control in illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir. The death toll in this incident was the same as in the latest accident.
