A young Indian Air Force pilot has been decorated with a Shaurya Chakra, India’s third highest ‘peacetime’ gallantry award, for his safe recovery of a damaged MiG-29 fighter last year. This is the third known time the canopy has blown off an IAF MiG-29 in flight over the decades.
First, here’s the official citation on Flight Lieutenant Aman Singh Hans’s award:
On 28 Mar 24, the officer was authorised to fly a long range ferry mission on MiG-29 aircraft by dark night, towards Exercise Gagan Shakti-24. After 20 minutes of flying time, at an altitude of 28,000 feet (8.5 km), the pilot felt a sudden blast in the cockpit with aircraft Head Up Display and visual reference to fly, blanking off. He realised that the canopy of the aircraft had flown off, exposing him to severe weather conditions with temperatures of minus 35° – 40° Celsius, dangers of decompression sickness, hypoxia and wind blast affecting eyes at that altitude and high speeds. In this grave situation, he maintained his composure and quickly took control of the aircraft. While flying on head down instruments, he announced the emergency using standby radio control, kept clear of the civil flying in the proximity and descended to a lower altitude of 3 km with no radio reception and severe pain in the eyes. He conveyed the flight information with utmost clarity to the controlling agencies and took prompt decision to land at the nearest airbase. He correctly assessed aircraft weight required for landing due to heavy fuel configuration and made a safe landing at the earliest. Despite imminent danger to his own self and inhospitable environmental conditions, he displayed astute presence of mind, controlled the aircraft and initiated the recovery. His prompt actions and exemplary situational awareness led to the recovery of the aircraft which otherwise could have been catastrophic, leading to loss of an asset to the IAF and collateral damage to civilian property. For an act of exceptional courage, displaying indomitable valour and exemplary gallantry beyond call of duty, Flight Lieutenant Aman Singh Hans is awarded with ‘Shaurya Chakra’.
MiG-29s entered service with the IAF in 1987, with just under 70 aircraft active across a handful of squadrons. Most of the jets have been through an upgrade with the IAF now contemplated a further upgrade of a squadron’s worth of the fighters with fresh ground attack capabilities.
The IAF MiG-29 is no stranger to canopy blow-outs. The last time this happened was June 2016 when IAF Squadron Leader Rijul Sharma managed to save his MiG-29 after the canopy blew off during a supersonic run. Sqn Ldr Sharma received a Vayu Sena Medal (Gallantry) for his handling of the damaged jet. A detailed first-hand account of his experience was reported first here on Livefist and later in even greater detail in India’s Most Fearless 1 by Livefist founder Shiv Aroor.
The first known in-flight canopy loss on an IAF MiG-29 was in 1994 when then Squadron Leader V.R. Chaudhari (later Chief of the Air Staff) was Flight Commander of the 28 Squadron. You can read our detailed piece about that incident here.
There has been nothing by way of crash reports of documentation to suggest a single cause for the canopy incidents, with investigations pointing variously to design flaws, operational protocol, maintenance procedures and pilot safety training.