President Kovind awards Vayu Sena Medal to 2 IAF pilots for gallantry

IAF pilots – R Ahlawat and SS Rao – awarded the Vayu Sena Medal for Gallantry

Two Indian Air Force (IAF) pilots – R Ahlawat and SS Rao – were awarded the Vayu Sena Medal for Gallantry from President Ram Nath Kovind on 71st Indian Independence Day.

Despite Injuries & WindBlast, he Saved the Aircraft & People.For Act of gallantry, WgCdr R Ahlawat awarded VSM (Gallantry) by the President. pic.twitter.com/LX6rNoTfsr — Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) August 15, 2017

For Act of Exceptional #Courage & #Valour beyond the #CallofDuty, WgCdr (now Gp Capt) SS Rao awarded VSM (Gallantry) by the President. pic.twitter.com/0phDCTof7A

— Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) August 15, 2017

On 26 Jul 2016, Wing Commander Ravinder Ahlawat was carrying out a 'Range Instructional Technique' over the Pokharan Range when his aircraft experienced a bird strike. It shattered the aircraft's canopy and completely damaged Ahlawat's helmet, “injuring his face, neck, arms and chest resulting in profuse bleeding and nearly incapacitating him,” reports a post on IAF's facebook page.

“Due to the injuries, blood streaming down his face and bird remains, Wg Cdr Ahlawat had limited vision available from his left eye only. Despite the nature of his injuries, shock of impact, high wind blast and minimal reaction time since the aircraft was flying at low level, he took all the emergency actions correctly to save the aircraft and people of a village in close vicinity of the Pokharan range,” the post added.

Wing Commander Subhash Singh Rao (presently Group Captain) received the medal after he successfully executed the landing of his MiG aircraft despite the aircraft's main wheel being misaligned.

On 10 Oct 2016, Rao was coming back to land his MiG-21 (Bis) Sqn aircraft post an Air Test sortie, when he was informed that the starboard main wheel of his aircraft was misaligned.

“This abnormality, a serious defect, would have resulted in pilot abandoning the aircraft through ejection. This potentially hazardous situation would have resulted in total loss of the aircraft, decapitating injuries to pilot as well as loss of property on ground. The situation was averted due to the timely decision taken by Wing Commander Subhash Singh Rao. In a very short time he was able to correctly assess the situation at hand and correlate the emergency with a similar incident. He exercised extreme caution and displayed precision flying of the highest degree and took a courageous decision to execute the landing of the aircraft under stress. On landing, the wheel of the aircraft failed and the aircraft started going off the runway. Wing Commander Subhash Singh Rao displayed superior skills in maintaining control of the aircraft and stopped the aircraft on the runway, thereby saving the aircraft,” said another post of IAF's FB page.