The Day that Shook the World

September 11, 2001 will no doubt be a watershed event in modern world history, it shook the very foundations of a smug America and exposed its soft belly which was deeply slashed. The aftermath of the “Attack on the Twin Towers” would alter the future of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and make the Al Qaeda a household name. Though it shook the world, India was largely untouched and unaware. Except for one corner of the South Western Sector of the IAF. And this is how I was involved.

I was posted to the First Supersonics then and was a young Flight Lieutenant raring to go in the MiG-29 fleet. The Squadron had been unceremoniously booted out of Pune and kicking and screaming in protest had reached Jamnagar in Jul-Aug 2001. All of us in the Squadron were in various states of despair and to add insult to the injury was the fact that Jamnagar could not even accommodate most of us. I was among the junior lot and had to stay in a TMQ. Since I was one of the junior most among the pilots I was obviously bringing up the rear of the line and hence had to dump all my samaan in Pasha & Manj’s house since he was leaving for FIS. Aparna decided that enough is enough after a couple of weeks and decided to go to Bangalore and try and recover her downtrodden spirits at home. I was to accompany her,  however the flight commander, Sqn Ldr Sanjeev Raj, who had been my instructor as a flight cadet convinced me to do two weeks of ORP from the 1st till the mid of September and then proceed on leave.

So here I was doing ORP from one of the Western bases along with Squadron Leader Jagmeet Singh Dhamoon better known as Jaggi Dhamoon. Now Jaggi Dhamoon was a very well read, cultured and soft spoken Sikh officer if there ever was one. With his glasses and twinkle in the eye he was full of questions, always the curious type and was great company and we both got along very well together. So Jaggi sir and I were having a great time together, doing ORP throughout the day and going for long walks in the evening after dinner, pretty much the only thing one could do at this  lonely outpost of the IAF.

Now Jaggi had just come to the First Supersonics from  the Flying Lances. He had been in the First Supersonics for barely a couple of months in his second tenure when he was detailed as the O R P leader. The Flying Lances had temporarily shifted base to the same base from where we were doing ORP from since their runway was under repairs. The squadron was full of his old chums and every evening we would meet up with either “Danny Dhankar” or “Shailu Sharma” and many more of his friends.

That fateful day Jaggi sir and I finished O R P at dusk as usual and set course to the mess to meet up with his buddies. As we walked into their room in the officers mess we found all of them hunched around the TV with a palpable sense of excitement in the air. As soon as we entered they gestured animatedly and said “Oye dekh dekh dekh kya ho raha hai”. We rushed to the TV screen and we could see smoke billowing from one of the towers of the WTC building and very soon we saw another explosion erupt in the second building which was quickly followed by the collapse of both the buildings. All of us watching absolutely stunned into silence as were the commentators of the TV channel since we couldn't even begin to comprehend how such a thing could happen deep in the heart of America, the most powerful country in the world.

None of us including the people on TV had any clue as to who the perpetrators were nor any idea as to what their demands or grievances were. There were confusing reports of further aeroplanes which had crashed into the Pentagon and some other place in Pennsylvania. The entire airspace of the United States had been shut down and combat aircraft had been scrambled to patrol the skies. Once we found our voices,  all of us started animatedly discussing as to who could be responsible for this dastardly act and the geo political implications of such an act. It was rather late in the evening probably closer to 9:00 p.m. when Jaggi  and I decided to get back to the room and proceed for dinner to the mess.

As we approached the door of the room, we found one young flying officer pacing agitatedly up and down along the veranda. As soon as he saw us, still in our flying overalls about to enter the room he confirmed from us that we were the ORP pilots and informed us that we were to get in touch with the station commander immediately. Wondering what the reason could be  Jaggi telephoned the station commander from the room and I could feel him wince as the voice on the other side of the telephone seemed to erupt in anger. Jaggi put the phone down looked at me and said “We have to mount ORP immediately”. “Now?? For what” I asked him, but he knew as much as I did. I quickly volunteered to take the Gypsy and proceed to the juice bar where I was sure all the ground crew had gathered for the evening refreshments and commandeer them for mounting the ORP once again. In the meanwhile, Jaggi was busy on the phone conversing with the relevant controlling authority regarding mounting the ORP once again. As soon as I got back, we both sped down to the ORP pens. Since the ground crew had secured the aircraft after dusk there was precious little that we could do till they arrived hence we were generally lounging around in front of the operation readiness room (ORR) door. Now you must understand that the ORR is an underground room which houses the ORP pilots who are housed with their flight suit and their g suits on, in a high state of readiness. However for the ORP to be “live” the aircraft needs to be ready along with the Ground Crew in full attendance in a similar state of readiness. since the ground crew were yet to reach there was precious little that we could do except pass the ORP state.

Now the pen which houses the aircraft in a blast protected shelter and the ORR are at both ends of the runway. Jaggi and I put on our G suits and were whiling away outside the ORR door when suddenly we had a high pitched whining sound of a Gypsy being driven in a very low gear at a very high RPM,  come screaming towards the ORP pens.  A Maruti Gypsy suddenly appeared in front of the ORR and carried out a sharp and extremely dangerous 180 degree turn with two of its wheels going into the air because of the rapidity of the turn executed at high speed and those two wheels slamming on the ground before the vehicle came to a stop. Out came Wing Commander “Pappu” Mehta, the Chief Operations Officer who literally sprinted towards us and straightway started yelling “Where the f**** have you guys been we have been looking for you for almost an hour. Do you even know what panic you have caused. Mount f****** ORP straight away” he screamed at us before barging off in his Gypsy again taking it to an extraordinarily high speed in an extremely low gear.

Both Jaggi and I looked bemused and confused as to what the hell was going on. Anyways like good fighter pilots we did nothing still waiting for the ground crew. Precisely 10 minutes later we had another high pitched whine,  another Gypsy suddenly emerged from the road , careen around dangerously on two wheels and stop with a thud right in front of us. This time it was the station Commander Group Captain Bannerjee. Sounding rather calm and unruffled he got out look at us and said in his deep baritone voice “is the O R P Ready?”. Jaggi and I both looked at each other and rather diffidently replied “no sir we are waiting for the ground crew”. On hearing this reply is façade of calm snapped and he screamed at us “ do you guys have any f****** clue as to what is happening? Any f****** clue?” And the  silence only seem to add to his anger. He menacingly pointed his finger at me e and said “You,  you go and f****** dress up the cockpit”. Instead of arguing that it was pointless, I quietly turned around towards each of the pens and dressed up the cockpit. By the time I got back he had already left in a huff and again in a high pitched torturous whine punishing his gypsy engine for no fault of anyone. Jaggi and I seriously started wondering if there were aeroplanes airborne from Pakistan heading towards vital installations in India or if Pakistan had launched an attack on India. We literally had no f****** clue!!!

      Well the ground crew eventually turned up in fits and starts and we managed to get the aircraft ready and got on to doing O R P.  Well this ORP which started off on 1st September 2001 continued for a couple of months without any  appreciation of what the expected threat was and how to handle it. Anyways before things could quietened down and the ORP could get called off, the December 13^th attack on the Parliament happened and things escalated pretty quickly and started getting out of hand. Though we were in a forgotten corner of the IAF, the “9/11” incident halfway across the world reverberated and shook us out of our stupor!!!!