India Jet Crash Kills At Least 8
An Indian air force jet on routine frontier patrol crashed into a bank building in northwestern India on Friday, starting a fire that killed at least eight people and injured 19, police and hospital officials said.
The pilot, who bailed out of the falling jet, reported that the Soviet-made MiG-21 had suffered engine failure, Air Force Chief S. Krishnaswamy said in New Delhi. India's aging MiG fleet is prone to crashes, with 100 in the last six years, killing 50 pilots.
"I saw the fighter jet roll over a couple of times before it hurtled down," said Sunil Malhotra, a software programmer who was standing on the balcony of his house. "I saw a blast in the sky and within 20 seconds, the plane fell. I saw the pilot and co-pilot parachuting down."
The rear portion of the plane burned up, he said, and the front crashed into the bank building, with parts hitting other buildings in Jullundur, in India's northwestern Punjab state.
The pilot, S.K. Naik, and the co-pilot bailed out and parachuted to safety, according to India's Defense Ministry and police. They were hospitalized, but the extent of their injuries was not immediately released.
Jullundur's senior police superintendent, Paramjit Singh Gill, said he counted seven burned bodies before sending them to the government hospital for post-mortem examinations. One victim died later at the hospital.
Five of the eight dead were bank employees, said Dr. Amarjit Singh, the hospital chief. Of the 19 injured, five were in intensive care and eight had been transferred to the state's best hospital, in Ludhiana, 30 miles to the south.
Malhotra and other witnesses reported that fire engines were delayed or had trouble getting water when they arrived. He said one fire truck broke down as it neared the site and bystanders had to push it.
The fire raged for more than three hours after the crash.
The army and air force sent 300 men to help rescue survivors and fight the fire, said army Brig. R.S. Sandhu. "There is no proper water supply to douse the fire. About a dozen vehicles have been destroyed in the fire."
Among those being treated for burn injuries in Jullundur was traffic constable Jaspal Singh, who said he and another policeman broke a wall of the bank to pull people out. "There was a lot of smoke. I was injured while trying to save some of the people in the bank," Singh said.
The fighter jet had taken off from the nearby Adampur air force base and was on a routine flight when it crashed, said P.K. Bandhopadhyaya, the Defense Ministry's spokesman in New Delhi.
Jullundur is about (60 miles) east of the Pakistan border.
Hundreds of thousands of Indian and Pakistani armed forces have been deployed to the northwestern border area because of war alerts by both countries. Patrol flights by India's aging MiG-21s occur daily.
India's fleet is prone to crashes. In the past six years, the government has reported more than 100 crashes that killed 50 pilots.
"Training on MiG-21s is being suspended ... to check out the aircraft," an air force spokesman, Squadron Leader R.K. Dhingra, said in New Delhi after the crash. However, he did not announce a suspension of patrol flights.