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PolicyDefence

IAF C-130J flies critically ill civilian from Leh to Delhi in night mission

The short-notice evacuation was flown in darkness and bad weather, the Defence Ministry said, as the Navy's Indra exercise with Russia wrapped up in Vladivostok.

From the editorial desk · LehPublished
An Indian Air Force C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft (file photo)
An Indian Air Force C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft (file photo)Photos: U.S Embassy New Delhi / Wikimedia Commons; KennyOMG / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain, CC BY-SA 3.0

Key points

  1. An IAF C-130J carried a critically ill civilian from Leh to Palam at short notice.
  2. The mission was flown in darkness and challenging weather, the Defence Ministry said.
  3. The India-Russia Indra naval exercise in Vladivostok was scheduled to end on 18 October.

An Indian Air Force C-130J transport aircraft has flown a critically ill civilian from Leh to Palam in Delhi on a short-notice night mission, the Defence Ministry said on Sunday.

“The mission was carried out in darkness and challenging weather conditions,” the ministry said, describing the flight as a casualty evacuation. It did not name the patient or say what illness had made the transfer necessary.

The ministry presented the flight as a sign of the force’s operational readiness at short notice.

Indra exercise ends

At sea, the annual Indra exercise between the Indian and Russian navies was scheduled to close in Vladivostok on Sunday, after running from 13 October.

It caps a busy few weeks of military drills. The Air Force hosted Exercise Tarang Shakti at Jodhpur from 26 September to 12 October with seven partner countries: Australia, Bangladesh, France, Germany, Sri Lanka, the UAE and the United States, with 32 nations sending observers. More than 800 sorties were flown. The US sent six F-35A fighters and France four Rafales.

Before that, Indian and US soldiers held the Yudh Abhyas exercise from 15 to 27 September, training at high altitude in Auli, Uttarakhand, and firing rockets at the Mahajan Field Firing Range in Rajasthan, where US HIMARS and Indian Pinaka systems were used.

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