2 pilots killed as Indian Air Force Jaguar jet crashes in Rajasthan

Defence affairs

The Indian Air Force (IAF) said two of its pilots were killed as a Jaguar fighter jet crashed near a village in Rajasthan’s Churu district on Wednesday.

“An IAF Jaguar Trainer aircraft met with an accident during a routine training mission and crashed near Churu in Rajasthan today. Both pilots sustained fatal injuries in the accident,” the IAF said in a post on X.

The statement added that no damage to any civilian property had been reported.

“IAF deeply regrets the loss of lives and stands firmly with the bereaved families in this time of grief,” the statement read, adding that a court of inquiry had been constituted to determine the cause of the accident.

The aircraft was a Jaguar jet, originally a British-French-made aircraft, that crashed in an agricultural field at around 1:25pm, Rajaldesar Station House Officer Kamlesh told Press Trust of India.

An investigation and rescue operations are underway after authorities rushed to the scene, Hindustan Times reported.

The aircraft had taken off from the Suratgarh airbase with two pilots onboard, ANI News reported.

The Indian Express quoted Churu Superintendent of Police Jai Yadav as saying that the incident occurred at around 12:30pm.

Earlier in May, India’s Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan confirmed in May that his country’s fighter jets were shot down by Pakistan during the four-day conflict earlier that month.

In April, the IAF had said it regretted the damage caused to the property near Madhya Pradesh’s Shivpuri district by the “inadvertent drop of a non-explosive aerial store” from an aircraft.

According to Indian media reports at the time, “a heavy metal object fell from the sky from an air force jet on the house of Manoj Sagar […] due to which two outer rooms have been damaged”.

In March of last year, a domestically made light combat IAF jet, called Tejas, crashed in Rajasthan, making it the first such incident since the aircraft was inducted in 2016.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been pushing for local manufacturing as the country seeks to shed its reputation as one of the world’s biggest importers of defence equipment.