Tags:
Journalism of Courage
A few days after ace pilots Wing Commander Dheeraj 8220;Dicky8221; Bhatia, 35, and Squadron Leader Shailendra Singh, 32, were killed after they lost control of their Suryakiran aerobatics jet in March over Bidar, some very uncomfortable questions were asked about the training standards in the air force.
In May, Parliament was told that 8220;human error8221; by the two pilots had caused the crash, yet nothing was said of how both men, reconciled to the worst, manoeuvred the diving aircraft away from built-up area so that the death toll would not, under any circumstances, cross two. Dicky had logged 2,500 hours of fighter flying, was a qualified flying instructor and had flown 30 displays with the Suryakirans. Shail had 2,300 fighter hours and was training for his 79th display. They were, without doubt, excellent pilots who like the rest of their team had the nerve for aviation in the very extremes of physics, a realm where things can go horribly wrong no matter how good you are. Their deaths put a pall over a service that now celebrates its safest year of flying in over three decades.
Dicky and Shail both died in a thin, inscrutable space where the trained mind collides with the intrigues of a machine, where what should go one way inexplicably goes another. We8217;ve seen it happen in far less severe circumstances. Yet, it makes all the difference 8212; it certainly did to the two pilots. A court of inquiry will only tell you so much. What it can8217;t tell you is whether they lost their nerve flying just a feet apart from their buddies or if they blanked out 8212; somehow both seem unlikely, considering it is what they8217;re most trained not to do.
And that8217;s just what Shail8217;s wife Shveta, a lecturer in Allahabad, will want to tell her son, Shashwat, about his father. The boy already wants to be a pilot.
