9:52 AM – Indian Netra and Northern Air command detected ten F16s took off from 3 Airbases in Pakistan. They came in 3 groups and merged in attack formation near Azad Kashmir.
9:54: AM – India scrambled 2 MiG-21 Bisons and 4 Sukoi MKi’s to intercept 10 Pak F16s.
9.58 AM – India sounded an alert to PAF fighters that, ‘You are about to encroach Indian air space. Please evade.’
9.59 AM – India sounded alert #2 to PAF with IFAC protocols to which they did not respond.
10:00 AM - PAF violates Indian airspace, with Swarm merge attack formation (which is tactical in nature).
10:01 AM - Nine F16s forced to deviate path and from within 1 KM of airspace they returned to Azad Kashmir after heavy surface to air ground artillery and valiant fight from our Sukois and MiGs.
10:02 AM - One Pak F16 penetrates deep inside Indian territory possibly till the range of 3 KM to destroy an Oil storage at an army brigade HQ.
10:03 AM – One IAF Sukoi and one Mig-21 Bison (Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman’s) continued engaging the F16 in a dog fight maneuver called “Defensive split”. Mig-21 was in the front, then the F16 and then a Sukoi. Due to firing from sukoi, F16 fled the scene using a dog fight maneuver called “wingover”.
10:04 AM – Sukoi hovered around oil field guarding it and Mig-21 Bison (Wg Cdr Abhinandan) chased the F16 out of Indian territory. While chasing he engaged F16 in a lock-in position for his onboard R-73 air to air missile to be deployed.
Here you have to applaud the courage of Abhinandan. He could have returned to base. But if he were to return, the missile locked-in would have disengaged (due to out of radar coverage) and he wouldn’t have been able to shoot the F16 down. So he decided to chase him down to Azad Kashmir and shoot him down.
10:08 AM – He engaged his R73 missile that hit the F16 and downed him.
10:08 AM – After shooting him down he performed a highly dangerous manoeuvre called “High-g barrel roll”. He had to do this because he had been in the vicinity of Pak surface to air artillery and SAM. While doing so he has to vertically climb at high speed and reverse its direction towards India. While doing so his old outdated Mig-21 Bison’s engine thrust had a problem and it became almost non-maneuverable for few secs. And during that time either a SAM or air artillery hit his plane.
