From The Pune Mirror 53 years after city-based Lt Col flew for 50 minutes with a black cobra 1.5 feet from his head, IAF acknowledges his bravery Santacruz control tower, this is Auster MK IX, at flight level 40 (4,000 ft) over Khed Shivapur, heading north-bound to Nashik Road. There is snake in the cockpit. This measured radio transmission on December 28, 1962, by Lieutenant Veteran Colonel BR Karandikar, a Major in the Indian Army at the time, scarce belied the spine-chilling circumstances under which he was undertaking the flight from Pune to Nashik Road — as young Karandikar flew the three-seater aircraft with his two airmen passengers, the watchful eyes of a 5.9-foot Indian cobra glittered a mere one-and-a-half feet above his head.Not only did the young pilot, now 91, fly the aircraft in a calm, collected way, he did so for 50 long minutes before landing it — again, safely — on the Nashik Road Airfield. While flying an aircraft with a full-grown venomous cobra slithering around is clearly no task for the faint-hearted, Karandikars act of valour went unacknowledged by the Indian Air Force (IAF) for 53 years — his bravery found praise only after he himself wrote a letter about the incident to the Prime Ministers Office on June 5, followed by one to the Ministry of Defence dated July 25 this year. Finally, a week ago, a special memento and personal letter dated August 8, written from the office of Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha, was handed over to Karandikar by IAF authorities from Lohegaon. Additionally, Raha requested Karandikar to share the story in his words for publishing in Aerospace Safety, the monthly IAF magazine that details the flying experiences of its pilots. When Pune Mirror caught up with the nonagenarian Karandikar, his frailness belied his sharp memory, as he reminisced. I was posted at Nashik Road at the time, and flew that morning to Pune with two airmen as my passengers. I reached Pune at 10.30 am, and asked maintenance staff to do some repairs on the port wing of the aircraft. It is possible that the snake managed to enter the aircraft during this time from a hole in the air ground cable on the port side, or then it was also possibly in the aircraft from before. I took off from Pune at 4.30 pm, and after 30 nautical miles I saw the black cobra over my head, narrated Karandikar. Stoic to this day, he added, It stayed there for 50 minutes as I flew — thereafter, it slithered back into a hole, which we immediately closed with a cloth. However, we landed safely. A native of Nashik , Karandikar did his schooling from the Bhonsala Military School, after which he studied at the Fergusson College for less than a year. During his stay in the city, he enrolled in the Army, and was commissioned on September 19, 1943, to the Military Headquarters of War (MHoW) near Indore in Madhya Pradesh. Initially, I was in inducted into the Infantry, but later changed over to Artillery, he said, adding that he was part of the 36 Antitank Regiment and 16 Field Regiment. During my stint in Artillery, the Indian Army invited volunteers to become paratroopers, glider pilots and air observers. I opted to become air an observer and was trained at an elementary flying training school at Jodhpur, he told Mirror. Karandikar subsequently flew Tiger Moth and Auster aircraft as an Air Observer of Army Aviation and collected 1,200 hours of experience — a substantial skill level. Though the retired armyman is happy to receive a letter from the Air Chief, he said, I only got the letter after I wrote to the PMO and Defence Ministry, that too after I recently read about a similar incident of bravery in the newspaper, by some paratroopers in Delhi. It is really not a problem though — I am happy they responded.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 14:38:46 +0000
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