Thanks to you.. we are safe...

I was reading one article on 26^th November incident, when US helicopters attacked Pak base and killed Pakistani soldiers. My condolences are with the victims’ family and dear ones. http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article2689765.ece

The article goes onto say: Questions are being raised as to why the Air Force was not called in that night to counter the attack, but the DGMO indicated that this would have “escalated the scale of the incident.” Also, given the disparity between Pakistan's military prowess and the combined strength of the NATO forces, a political response was preferred — though the civilian leadership was informed about the incident only after daybreak.

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This reminded me of an incident that took place way back in 2000, when I was studying in Xth standard. It was a Sunday afternoon when my uncle, who is an airman, took me to Air Traffic Control (ATC) tower in Amritsar.

Rajasansi airport in Amritsar is used by both civil and defense aircrafts.Since I was with a defense personnel, getting access to the ATC tower was not much difficult. As soon as we entered the control room, we saw lots of activities going on in the small glass walled room. For a small Airport of the size Rajasansi, where there were not many international and domestic flights, this was unusual. I kept quiet as the drama unveiled in front of me.

The chief was shouting at his sub-ordinates, ‘Ask him to take XYZ route’ and the message was aptly delivered through a microphone. I had never heard of the place which ‘The chief’ had mentioned, later I realized that it was a code. The sub-ordinate spoke to the pilot again and relayed the message back to ‘The chief’, ‘He says everything is fine now. We will be able to see him in couple of minutes’. Meanwhile my uncle went and spoke to his Air force counterparts. He came back and suggested that we should better go outside as something critical was going on. As soon as we came out of the room, I asked him the details. He said, ‘There is this Uzbek cargo flight, which is coming to India after a long gap. The pilot is not sure of the route. As soon as he diverted from the route, he got tailed by 2 MiGs, which took off from Pathankot. Everything seems to be sorted out now and we will be able to see this flight soon.’

As soon as we reached the ground floor, I could see the pilot of the Uzbek aircraft coming in from the runway. A tense looking fat guy in mid-50s. He was narrating the incident to the people who were walking alongside him. His face was animated and he was gesturing the MiGs with his palms, which were shivering.

My uncle asked me whether I would like to see the Aircraft and soon I found myself standing beneath the humongous Uzbek machine. While standing there I recollected the pilot’s tense face in my mind who flew that machine a while ago and who was made to say all his prayers by our alert Indian Air Force…'Thanks to you.. we are safe...'