Was Pankaj Kumar the pilot of 2nd downed plane?

[Peaceful Civilian]

WC Punkaj nahbar was mig 21 pilot too died same day. My take there could be pair of Mig 21 intercepter WC abhinandon and WC punjag Nahbar.Good work keep digging.


He said about wing commander punjak Nahbar nor carpol punkaj.

Mig 21 are flying coffins . Even if we don't kill their pilot, Mig21 will......
Superpower india is trying hard to maintain numbers.They have huge area to cover. Why we care about their pilots when Indian themselves don't care their own pilots. I think it was mistake to release abinandan. He will again fly mig21, and get killed. I feel pity on his family.

 

[Ghessan]

In last video 00:58 the guy answer to some one's question about rank, 'Yeh copal thay, Airforce ki eik rank hoti hai copal.'
So if he is telling the truth then definitely Pankaj Kumar was not a pilot.
On the other hand his demand to revenge Pakistan for a crashed helicopter of technical fault is an important point to consider that the helicopter was also shot down by PAF.

by "COPAL" did he want to say Co-Pilot? was in a twin seat fighter aircraft?

 

[untitled]

COPAL

Corporal
Co-pilot is not a rank. For many of us in our part of the world, a person who works with aircraft (flying them or otherwise) is considered a "pilot". Hence the wrongly titled videos you see here

 

[Ghessan]

Corporal
Co-pilot is not a rank. For many of us in our part of the world, a person who works with aircraft (flying or otherwise) is considered a "pilot". Hence the wrongly titled videos you see here

probably yes as quoted in Wikipedia:
India and Pakistan[edit]
These ranks are still used in the Indian Air Force and Pakistan Air Force. it is a rank given to an airman who is senior to leading aircraftsman but junior to a sergeant. A corporal is designated as a Non-Commissioned Officer in the Indian Air Force.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporal#India_and_Pakistan

 

[Jinn Baba]

Found another hindi article: https://www.amarujala.com/uttar-pra...of-mathura-martyr-in-a-plane-crash-in-badgaon

Using Google translate, I see three interesting things:

1:

Airman Technical (Nayak) Pankaj, stationed at Air Force Station in Srinagar, flew to Chopper for a special operation.

So may be I'm wrong. But then according to this Source from 2006:

"In what is believed to make it a far more efficient fighting force, the Indian Air Force (IAF) is mulling a separate sub-cadre of weapon systems operators along the lines of similar specialised cadres in the USAF and RAF.
...
'Weapons operators, who do not necessarily need to be pilots, will fly in twin-seater fighters with combat pilots and perform all offensive functions, thereby leaving the pilot to focus only on flying,'' sources at Air Headquarters said."

So he could have been a WSO from one of the downed jets?

2)

On February 26, Pankaj had talked to his mother Line and brother Ajay at around nine o'clock in the night. He had told that February 27. To be rehearsal for special operation.

Special operation - were IAF planning something again?

3)

Pankaj used to say that no one is bigger than the country. Whenever he flies, it seems that he will make some big for the country. Whenever they came home, their friends and family often used to discuss the Air Force.

Now this is the bit that makes me think conspiracy. Why would the family use these words unless he was a pilot or someone who would regularly fly? How could he make "some big for the country" when he flew - if all he were was ground crew?

 

[xyxmt]

It doesn't matter what they admit and what they dont, India know they lost Mig21 and SU30, Pakistan knows it as well since we shot it down.

 

[khail007]

by "COPAL" did he want to say Co-Pilot? was in a twin seat fighter aircraft?

IAF still uses the old British era ranks, usually people used to pronounce 'corporal' as 'copal' and that is NCO 'Non Commissioned Officer ... you yourself and @member.exe explained it.

 

[Maarkhoor]

Good detective work, I think the ISPR would be put out a bit, because Mr Ghafoor would want to be telling this info in a future press conference.

Take this with the modi comment that "if only we had the rafael, things could have been different" and a picture is being built up.

One of SU-30 pilot who fell in our side was Sikh and his body handed over to red cross.

 

[Qutb-ud-din Aybak]

I had found that twisted story on 4 march. But didnt posted on pdf as their was no conclusive evidence available. We can only speculate and assume.

 

[SSGcommandoPAK]

So I recently came across a list of personnel that India claims were killed in the 27/02 Mi17 crash. They were (Source):

- Wg Cdr Sidharth
- co-pilot Sqn Ldr Ninad Mandavgane
- Sgt Vikrant Sehrawat
- Cpl Pankaj Kumar
- Cpl Deepak Pandey
- Cpl Vishal Kumar Pandey

First it bugged me a little that two senior officers were both flying (pilot and co-pilot) the Mi17. So I decided to look up all the names.

I noticed that some of the Indian news sites were missing one of the names - like here. The missing name was Pankaj Kumar.

Searching for Pankaj Kumar, I came across this Hindi news site which has a report dated 27/02/19 @ 6.09PM stating (Google translate):



No.1 Squadron operate the Mirage 2000, and are the ones that supposedly did the 26/02/19 SirJiKal strikes.

But the last bit had me thinking - have these guys got it confused? Or is IAF falsely claiming that Pankaj Kumar died in a helicopter accident? Because why would there be three pilots on that Mi17 - that's if Pankaj was a pilot.

So more searches and I find these:

Video title claiming Pankaj was a pilot:

India Today: People console death of IAF pilot Pankaj Kumar who died in chopper crash But then within the article they refer to him as a soldier.

Need to do more digging, and will do tomorrow on all the names. Not entirely sure if I'm onto anything yet.

Edit: Missed this out:

From ANI! Look what it says on the video at the start and then again:

"Says Slain IAF Pilot's Father"
"Slain Pilot Pankaj Kumar's Father"

And then even the father does gol mol from 15s.

Excellent work bro,Now it's our duty to spread it across social media !

 

[pakiwithattitude]

This is very interesting and made me come out of lurk mode and make a post .

What we know is that when planes were shot down during the dogfight, nobody knew which side of LOC pilots were land so Indians had scrambled Mi17 on search and rescue op to recover their down pilots. Before this discovery by JibBaba I thought they were trying to get to Abhi but it seems like Mi17 was able to recover the second pilot that fell on their side of LOC. Its still a mystery what brought Mi17 down.

Another point to note is that there is an audio circulating around even on this forum which details the dogfight. Initially I ignored it as some rando making sh*t up but lets go over it again one more time. The guy in the audio claims that Pak Mirages has dropped H-4 which is true (he calls them H-bomb but whatev), He claims that F-16 were providing top cover which is also true. The only new information in that audio was that instead of claiming a SU30 being shot down, he claimed that second down plane was a Mirage 2000. Now I have been following all this very closely and no one I know has claimed that a mirage 2000 went down before that audio. Everyone from Pak side is claiming that a SU30 was shot while Indians are insistent on F16 being shot down. I am starting to believe that the guy in the audio maybe telling the truth.

Finally, lets read this Indian press release http://pib.nic.in/PressReleseDetail.aspx?PRID=1567576 (very slow load) . It is extremely carefully worded and go in painful detail to claim that no SU30 has been shot down instead of claiming that no other IAF plane has been shot down. It gives them plausible deniability in future to assert that they never claimed a Mirage 2000 had been shot.

My theory is that 'Punkaj Kumar' was the second pilot who was shot that day presumably flying a Mirage 2000. Mi17 was sent to recover him which it did but then it went down due to friendly fire, manpad or whatever (this is still a mystery). I think this also explains why Indian took so long to do their press conference that day while ISPR had announced dog fight within minutes, they were trying to get their story straight about the second down plane and ended up hiding it in Mi17 crash.

 

[Evora]

Thats the video of mig21 or mirrage 2000(most probably) two seater which they lost in Badgam and MI17 was sent for rescued mission which also hit by bvr.

 

[crankthatskunk]

Weapons operators, who do not necessarily need to be pilots, will fly in twin-seater fighters with combat pilots and perform all offensive functions, thereby leaving the pilot to focus only on flying,'' sources at Air Headquarters said."

So he could have been a WSO from one of the downed jets?
Special operation - were IAF planning something again?
Now this is the bit that makes me think conspiracy. Why would the family use these words unless he was a pilot or someone who would regularly fly? How could he make "some big for the country" when he flew - if all he were was ground crew?

I have looked at it using google translate too. It seems the Indians were planning some kind of special operation over Pakistan airspace. There is no doubt, this man was a pilot of a sort, or airman as you said.
It is very clear they were planning something over Pakistan's airspace.
I am certain that Mi 17 is shoot down by PAF.

 

[Readerdefence]

Hi do they have dual seater mig21 anybody can give some info
Another Q is how usually airforce operate a flying mission sending wc without the other
Fighters around or above the rank of wc flying or lower rank
Any learned memeber if possible to answer the Qs
Thank you

 

[Asian.Century]

So I recently came across a list of personnel that India claims were killed in the 27/02 Mi17 crash. They were (Source):

- Wg Cdr Sidharth
- co-pilot Sqn Ldr Ninad Mandavgane
- Sgt Vikrant Sehrawat
- Cpl Pankaj Kumar
- Cpl Deepak Pandey
- Cpl Vishal Kumar Pandey

First it bugged me a little that two senior officers were both flying (pilot and co-pilot) the Mi17. So I decided to look up all the names.

I noticed that some of the Indian news sites were missing one of the names - like here. The missing name was Pankaj Kumar.

Searching for Pankaj Kumar, I came across this Hindi news site which has a report dated 27/02/19 @ 6.09PM stating (Google translate):



No.1 Squadron operate the Mirage 2000, and are the ones that supposedly did the 26/02/19 SirJiKal strikes.

But the last bit had me thinking - have these guys got it confused? Or is IAF falsely claiming that Pankaj Kumar died in a helicopter accident? Because why would there be three pilots on that Mi17 - that's if Pankaj was a pilot.

So more searches and I find these:

Video title claiming Pankaj was a pilot:

India Today: People console death of IAF pilot Pankaj Kumar who died in chopper crash But then within the article they refer to him as a soldier.

Need to do more digging, and will do tomorrow on all the names. Not entirely sure if I'm onto anything yet.

Edit: Missed this out:

From ANI! Look what it says on the video at the start and then again:

"Says Slain IAF Pilot's Father"
"Slain Pilot Pankaj Kumar's Father"

And then even the father does gol mol from 15s.

Thats what everyone is saying pilot Pankaj Kumar aircraft was shot down and its confirmed India tried to cover it up as usual.