Belagavi: Wing Commander Hanumanth Rao Sarathi‘s body finally arrived here on the afternoon of Sunday January 29, a day after being killed in a collision between a Sukhoi-30MKI and a Mirage-2000 aircraft in Madhya Pradesh on Saturday.
Wing Commander Sarathi was killed after the two Indian Air Force (IAF) front-line combat aircraft crashed on Saturday while doing a training mission in the Morena district of Madhya Pradesh. The other two pilots were able to safely escape from the aircraft.
A special IAF plane brought Sarathi’s body and it would later be taken to his home in Ganeshpur.
A pall of gloom has descended at the residence of Wing Commander Sarathi, an instructor at Tactics and Air Combat Development Establishment (TAC-DE) in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior.
The family members and relatives were inconsolable with his untimely demise. The 35-year-old pilot is survived by his wife, a three-year-old daughter and a one-year-old son.
The IAF officer comes from a defence background. Sarathi’s father Revansiddappa Sarathi is a retired honorary captain and brother Praveen Sarathi is a serving Group Captain.
