Former Congress MLA Akhilesh Pratap Singh was on a ‘padayatra’ in the rural areas of Rudrapur in Uttar Pradesh when a WhatsApp message in his family group left him stunned.
His nephew, Group Captain Varun Singh, was the lone survivor on board the Mi-17V5 helicopter with Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat and 12 others that crashed near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday.
“If he has survived such a tragedy, I believe God will be kind and he will recover soon,” the former Uttar Pradesh lawmaker told The Hindu, adding that doctors had told the family that the next few days were critical.
“My thoughts are with Gp Capt Varun Singh who has survived the tragic chopper crash. I pray for his speedy recovery and long life,” President Ram Nath Kovind tweeted on Thursday.
Group Captain Varun Singh, who was shifted to the Command Hospital in Bengaluru, was conferred Shaurya Chakra, India’s third highest peacetime gallantry award, this August for exceptional gallantry as a Wing Commander in October 2020 when he was posted with a Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) squadron.
On October 12, 2020, he was flying a test sortie in the LCA or Tejas when an emergency developed due to the failure of cockpit pressurisation at high altitude but he managed to land the aircraft displaying extraordinary courage and skill, the citation said.
“Group Captain Varun Singh joined the Indian Air Force by successfully clearing the National Defence Academy test and was adjudged the best pilot of his batch,” said his uncle Mr. Akhilesh Pratap Singh.
The fighter pilot comes from a family of defence personnel as his father K.P. Singh is a retired colonel of the Army and his younger brother Tanuj is a serving naval officer.
