Mirage goes down again, No. 4 in last two months

An IAF Mirage 2000 fighter caught fire and crashed tonight in the forests of Barsota, 75 km from Gwalior, some 20 minutes after take-off. The pilot was believed to have ejected safely. It was the fourth Mirage to go down in two months.

The aircraft, which took off from the Gwalior base on a routine sortie, crashed around 9 pm on the Gwalior-Morena border, district collector Rakesh Srivastava said. Efforts are on to locate pilot Gururani.

On October 12, a Mirage trainer aircraft had crashed near Gwalior and its two occupants had ejected safely. Earlier, a Mirage crashed on September 23, while another crash-landed during an airshow in Mauritius.