On the other hand, the USD 110 million F-35B jet suffered a technical snag while on a maritime exercise in the Indian Ocean and had to make an emergency landing at the Thiruvananthapuram international airport on June 14.The jet was part of the HMS Prince of Wales Carrier Strike Group of the British Royal Navy.A team of British engineers was flown in to fix the stealth fighter jet, and it finally took off for Darwin, Australia on Tuesday morning after almost 37 days.Similarly, a group of engineers, pilots and one IL-76 transport aircraft with spares and one IL-78 refuelling tanker aircraft flew from India to Port Louis, Mauritius to fix the Mirage and help bring it back.The rectification team made the aircraft ready for ground runs by October 13 and the Mirage did its first test flight on October 14, just 10 days after the landing accident.The team was faced with a task that had no precedence, given that Mirage-2000 is not cleared by the manufacturer Dassault to do a no-wheels landing, even in an emergency.Recalling the mission, an IAF officer said that Jaspreet, then posted with a fighter squadron in the Central sector, was specially chosen as the pilot to fly the aircraft back to India.The ferry route is over one of the most desolate stretches of the Indian Ocean and even for a fully serviceable single engine fighter it is considered a highly challenging task, said the officer.The fact that the ferry would also involve multiple air to air refuelling added to the overall degree of difficulty, he said.Once the aircraft had been repaired, Jaspreet carried out one taxi test and three air test sorties between October 12 and 19, during which multiple problems were revealed related to its fly-by-wire system, rudder, data display screen, throttle, brakes and fuel gauges.The 2126 nautical mile (nearly 4000 kilometer) flight to India was initially planned for October 20, but severe weather in the second half of the route, ruled out air-to-air refueling.”The inclement weather ensured that one Mirage 2000, one IL-78, one IL-76, and more than 50 IAF personnel were now stranded with the possibility that the wait could go on for weeks,” said Jaspreet.However, on the morning of October 25, satellite pictures revealed that the first 1000 nautical miles (NM) of the flight route from Mauritius to TVM was clear, allowing three air to air refuelling.With the window of opportunity closing, Air Headquarters signed off for the ferry flight to take off on October 26, 2004.
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