A fighter jet stunt went horribly wrong during a training exercise in Bangladesh, leading to the death of Squadron Leader Asim Jawad, aged 32.
Video footage of the crash shared on YouTube, showed the Yakovlev Yak-130 jet attempting daring aerial maneuvers reminiscent of the Hollywood flick, "Top Gun" before erupting into flames and plummeting to the ground.
Jet Seen Bouncing Off Runway While Attempting Low-Altitude Stunt
The stunt turned fatal when the jet bounced off the runway while attempting a low-altitude aileron roll, causing sparks to fly and smoke to billow out of the jet. The aileron roll is an aerobatic manoeuvre in which an aircraft does a full 360-degree revolution about its longitudinal axis. The footage captured the harrowing moment before the pilot, Asim Jawad, tried to pull the jet up.
Both Asim and his co-pilot, Wing Commander Sohan Hasan Khan, bravely ejected from the plummeting aircraft and landed in a nearby river. While rescuers managed to save them, Asim succumbed to his injuries in the hospital. Sohan, on the other hand, is fighting for his life in critical condition, according to reports.
Governing Agency Says Jet Crashed Due to 'Mechanical Failure'
The aircraft was later recovered from the water. The government's Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement that the training jet had 'crashed due to a mechanical failure'. They claimed the pilots manoeuvred the aircraft away from the densely populated area near the airport to the sparsely populated area where they crashed. However, CCTV footage of the incident appears to show the crash was caused by the high-risk stunt.
