he was survived by his wife squadron Leader (Retd) Priyanka Sinha and two minor daughters. He was an alumnus of City Montessori School, Metropolitan Branch and entered the National Defense Academy to join the Indian Air Force during the Kargil War.
His wife class leader Priyanka Sinha received the Indian flag and other belongings of the deceased fighter pilot from the Indian Air Force.
Speaking to TOI, the deceased pilot’s uncle Shishir Sinha said, “Harshith decided to join the IAF after the Kargil War. Before him no one in our family had ever served in the defense forces. After passing Intermediate, he joined NDA and joined the Air Force.
According to an IAF spokesperson, Wing Commander Harshit Sinha was commissioned in June 2004.
“While serving in the Indian Air Force, Harshit met Priyanka and they tied the knot in 2007. Priyanka left the Air Force to look after her two daughters,” Shishir said.
After the wreath laying ceremony, IAF officials presented the Indian flag and other items to Harshit’s wife.
Official sources in IAF confirmed to TOI, that the postmortem of the dead fighter pilot was done JaisalmerHowever, the report has not been received yet.
Harshit’s MiG-21 jet crashed in the western sector near the India-Pakistan border at around 8.30 pm on Friday night. He was from 51 Squadron (Sword Arms) based in Srinagar, piloted by Wing Commander Vardhman Abhinandan (now Group Captain) shot down the F-16. He was recently awarded come circle, 51 SQN team had come to Jaisalmer for the purpose of training.
Wing Sinha did not get a chance to get out of the plane. An official said that the Indian Air Force has ordered a court of inquiry to ascertain the exact cause of the accident. There have been five MiG-21 crashes this year, in which three pilots have been killed. On 17 March, Group Captain Ashish Gupta, a highly experienced pilot posted at the IAF’s ‘top-gun’ school Tactics and Air Combat Development Establishment in Gwalior, was killed when his MiG-21 took off soon after taking off from the Gwalior airbase. crashed down.
Another pilot, Squadron Leader Abhinav Choudhary (28), was killed when his MiG-21 ‘Bison’, which had taken off Suratgarh The airbase in Rajasthan for a “routine night combat training flight” crashed on 20 May.
The old Soviet-origin MiG-21, the first truly supersonic fighter to be inducted by the Indian Air Force in 1963, has had a high crash rate over the years. Of the 872 MiG-21s progressively inducted by the IAF, over 400 have been lost in accidents since 1971-72, with over 200 pilots and nearly 50 civilians killed on the ground, as previously reported by TOI.
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