In a first for India, a Mirage 2000 multi-role combat jet of the Indian Air Force (IAF) test-landed on the Yamuna Expressway on Thursday morning, marking a successful trial of landing such aircraft on selected highways during emergencies.
Yamuna expressway connects Greater Noida, which is on the edge of the national capital region, to Agra in Uttar Pradesh.
"The IAF had been considering the use of national highways for emergency landing by fighter aircraft and this capability was demonstrated on Thursday," said an IAF spokesperson.
This comes after two Mirage 2000 aircraft successfully landed at the airstrip in Saifai village of Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh on May 16.
"The aircraft made a practice approach on the highway, coming down to a height of 100 metres before landing off the next approach," said the spokesperson.
The aircraft, which flew from the IAF base in Gwalior, briefly landed at 6.40am before taking off. The exercise was carried out near Mathura district on the 165-km-long six-lane controlled-access expressway.
A makeshift air traffic control, safety services, rescue vehicles, bird clearance parties and other requirements were set up by IAF personnel belonging from the air force station in adjoining Agra. The exercise was carried out in coordination with the civil administrations from the districts of Mathura and Agra even as the highway traffic had to be stopped for a few hours.
IAF said it has plans to identify more such road-runways in India for emergency landing drills and which can be activated at the time of contingencies.
Internationally, such road-runways for emergency landing of military aircraft is not very uncommon.
In fact, neighboring countries like Pakistan and China have already identified such emergency facilities. The M-1 Motorway (Peshawar-Islamabad) and the M-2 Motorway (Islamabad-Lahore) in Pakistan have emergency runway sections. Similarly, China has a road runway.
The first such highway strips came to be built in Germany around World War-II.
During wars, airstrips are one of the first targets and it is then that such road runways can be used, said experts.
