IAF's second Jaguar crash in three days
Ahmedabad, June 8 : An Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot escaped narrowly on Friday after the Jaguar aircraft he was flying developed a snag and crashed near an air base here in Gujarat.
The pilot, a Squadron Leader, was returning to the Jamnagar Air Force base after a routine training mission when he detected the snag while landing, an IAF spokesperson said.
He managed to eject safely but it wasn't known immediately if he sustained any grave injuries.
Informed sources said the plane rolled for about 500 feet before the rocket-assisted ejection seat threw the pilot out. The plane then rolled for another 100 feet and slipped into the rough alongside the tarmac.
A court of inquiry has been ordered, the spokesperson said. This is the second IAF Jaguar crash in the last three days.
Air Commodore Sanjai Chauhan was killed after his plane went down in the Kutch region in northwestern Gujarat on Tuesday. He had also taken off from the Jamnagar Air Force base for a routine training mission. The cause of the June 5 crash is still unknown.
The Jaguar aircraft, in service for four decades, were built under licensing from SEPECAT - an Anglo-French consortium.
The IAF has been upgrading them with modern avionics, radar systems and modern engines to prolong their service life.
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India to get first national security semiconductor fabrication plant
Wilmington (PTI): Under a transformative collaboration with the US, India will get a national security semiconductor fabrication plant that will produce chips for use in military hardware and next-generation telecommunications.
The India-US joint project was announced following talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden in Wilmington on Saturday.
A joint fact sheet on Modi-Biden talks said the two leaders "hailed" the semiconductor project as a "watershed arrangement".
It will be the first ever India-US semiconductor fabrication partnership.
It is the first time ever the US military has agreed to do a partnership for these highly-value technologies with India and it is a watershed moment as it is as significant as the civil nuclear deal, people familiar with the matter said.
"President Biden and Prime Minister Modi hailed a watershed arrangement to establish a new semiconductor fabrication plant focused on advanced sensing, communication, and power electronics for national security, next-generation telecommunications, and green energy applications," the fact sheet noted.
It said the "fab, which will be established with the objective of manufacturing infrared, gallium nitride and silicon carbide semiconductors, will be enabled by support from the India semiconductor mission as well as a strategic technology partnership between Bharat Semi, 3rdiTech, and the US Space Force."
The Fab becomes not only India’s first, but one of the world's first multi-material fabs for national security, the people cited above said.
The fact sheet said Modi and Biden praised combined efforts to facilitate resilient, secure, and sustainable semiconductor supply chains including through GlobalFoundries' (GF) creation of the GF Kolkata Power Center in Kolkata.
It said the project will enhance mutually beneficial linkages in research and development in chip manufacturing.
"The leaders welcomed steps our industry is taking to build safe, secure, and resilient supply chains for US, Indian, and international automotive markets, including through Ford Motor Company's submission of a Letter of Intent to utilize its Chennai plant to manufacture for export to global markets," the document said.
It said Modi and Biden commended ongoing efforts to build more expansive cooperation around 5G deployment and next-generation telecommunications.
This includes the US Agency for International Development's plans to expand the Asia Open RAN Academy with an initial USD 7 million investment to grow this workforce training initiative worldwide, including in South Asia with Indian institutions.
