IAF pilot’s widow raises questions after jet crash

New Delhi: Garima Abrol, the wife of Squadron Leader Samir Abrol, who was killed in the Mirage 2000 trainer crash, asked on Sunday how many more pilots will have to give up their lives to realise that there is something really wrong in the system.

“I need answers. Whilst it’s just another story and incident for some, I will keep fighting for the cause that took you away from me,” she wrote in a Facebook post.

She said that a pilot is not made in a day; it takes a decade of training for their souls to get moulded for the job.

“How many fighters have to give up their lives for you to wake up? I do not want any other sister of the armed force family to suffer the pain that I am going through. Words can’t describe how painful it is out here alone without my better half,” she said.

She said that such is the job of a soldier that it does not bring any fame.

“No one cries when you leave but the family. It does not make you a celebrity. The media covers it for a day and drops it just like they have done for the pilots who have met the same untimely fate before Samir. Then everyone forgets about it,” she said.

Garima said that the biggest fear in the life of every soldier’s wife is when her husband would be called to the front line and made to serve in an active war.

“I too had this fear. Many a time I woke up crying after having such bad dreams. But Samir would hold me, console me and tell me that it was the ultimate purpose of his job to be able to serve our nation when the call comes. He wanted me to be brave, as that’s what he was — a brave soldier, a patriot to the core,” she said.

Earlier, Abrol’s brother Sushant had said in a post that while the bureaucracy enjoys its “corrupt cheese and wine,” the air warriors are given “outdated machines” to fight.

Sqn Ldr Siddhartha Negi and Sqn Ldr Abrol, both test pilots with the Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment, died on February 1 when Mirage 2000 trainer aircraft, which had just been upgraded by defence PSU Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), crashed soon after taking off at HAL airport in Bengaluru.