Sunday, December 16, 2018

Parents turn grief into a mission for cub pilots’ safety

In Pune  Jeet Aerospace Institute, set up by Capt Anil Gadgil in Pune in memory of his son Flt Lt Abhijit Gadgil, who was killed in a MiG-21 crash in 2001, has won the prestigious Flight Simulation Medal 2018 awarded by the Royal Aeronautical Society, London.
While the news may have been lost in the haze of recent assembly elections and the controversial SC order on Rafale deal, the award is a recognition of a long struggle by Capt Anil Gadgil and his wife Kavita to wake the government up to the dangers posed to pilots’ life by the ageing fleet of MiGs that had earned the unfortunate monicker “flying coffins” in the late 1990s.
While Kavita Gadgil’s relentless campaign against MiGs led the then National Democratic Alliance government to start fixing/phasing out MiGs, Capt Anil Gadgil channeled his grief to set up Jeet Aerospace Institute on a piece of family land near Khadakwasla in 2006. The institute, which has India’s only mobile flight simulator, has since trained more than 460 pilots, a feat recognised by Royal Aeronautical Society.
Capt Gadgil is the first Indian to be honoured with the Flight Simulation Medal and he now stands in some august company –Wright Brothers were one of the earliest recipients of a medal from Royal Aeronautical Society.
The Gadgils, who returned to Pune last week from London, where Capt Gadgil was honoured, remember 2001 like it was yesterday. They could have easily let grief take over their lives. But the fact that those in power tried to portray the MiG crash that killed their son as an error on his part spurred the couple to launch a campaign that has made the skies safer for young pilots.
On an average, eight to ten MiGs crashed every year in the late 90s and early 2000. The Gadgils were not going to let their son take the rap for machines that were not fit to fly.
16/12/18 Satish Nandgaonkar/Mumbai Mirror
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