Operation Kaveri: Reel life imitated real life on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday. Ajay Devgan’s movie Runway 34 tells the story that a flight trapped in a bad weather and the lives of passengers were at stake as one capable pilot attempted to land plane safely in extreme dark. Something similar happened to a C-1304 aircraft of the Indian Air Force which rescued 121 Indians from a small and tilt airstrip at Wadi Sayyidna, which is about 40 km north of Khartoum on the night of 27/28 April. The Indian passengers, who were flown to Jeddah, included medical cases, including a pregnant woman, besides those who had no means to reach port Sudan, according to IAF.
#SudanConflict | In a daring operation carried out on the night of 27/28 Apr 2023, a C-130J aircraft of the IAF rescued 121 personnel from a small airstrip at Wadi Sayyidna, which is about 40 km North of Khartoum. The passengers included medical cases, including a pregnant lady;… pic.twitter.com/gTQv0w8Pul
---Advertisement---— ANI (@ANI) April 28, 2023
The airstrip had a degraded surface, with no navigational guidance or fuel and most critically there were no lights on the runway that are must for landing of any plane, IAF said in a statement.
Enthused by the success and complexity of the operation, the Air Force said that the operation between Wadi Sayedna and Jeddah would be remembered as one of the most daring and error-free operations in the history of the Indian Air Force., Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan said that under ‘Operation Kaveri’, 2,100 Indians have reached Jeddah so far.
News agency ANI quoted defense sources as saying that Group Captain Ravi Nanda is the captain of the C-130J special ops aircraft of the Indian Air Force, which took off from a small airstrip in Wadi Sayedna near Khartoum in Sudan during the ongoing conflict there. Launched a daring operation to save the Indian citizens.
Nanda was awarded a gallantry medal for rescuing Indians from Afghanistan in August 2021 under Operation Devi Shakti. IAF aircraft fly with a team of Garuda Special Forces on all such missions.
