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Wing Commander Hanumanth Rao Sarathi, who was killed in a mid-air collision between a Sukhoi-30 and a Mirage 2000 in Madhya Pradesh’s Morena district, was cremated with full military honours on Sunday in Karnataka’s Belagavi district. Sarathi’s body was flown in by a special IAF plane and it was later taken to his home in Ganeshpur where his last rites were performed, an official said.
The two frontline combat aircraft of the IAF crashed during a training mission on Saturday, resulting in the death of Wing Commander Sarathi while two other pilots ejected safely.
The impact of the collision was such that while one aircraft crashed in Morena, the other went down 100 km away in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur.
A pall of gloom has descended at the residence of Wing Commander Sarathi, an instructor at Tactics and Air Combat Development Establishment (TAC-DE) in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior. He is survived by his wife Meemasha, their 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son.
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“Sarathi comes from a defence background. He wanted his daughter and son to be IAF officers, too. However, his untimely demise may discourage his wife to let her children join the forces,” said Sarathi’s brother-in-law Dr Jagadish (who goes by one name).
Born on October 28, 1987, Sarathi completed his schooling from Kendriya Vidyalaya No. 2 in Belagavi, and later joined the National Defence Academy where he excelled with a gold medal and joined IAF in 2009.
According to local residents, the Sarathis originally belonged to Haveri district in northern Karnataka, and later moved to Belagavi as it has an IAF Training Centre and Defence Force – The Maratha Light Infantry Regimental Centre. They live in a rented house in Ganeshpur locality, about 3km from Belagavi.
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The family was often called the “Military Mane (Military House)” due to its background in the defence forces. Sarathi’s elder brother Praveen serves in the IAF as a Group Captain and a pilot, while their father, Revansiddaiah, is a retired Group Captain.
“Not only the relatives of the Sarathi family, but the entire shepherd community was proud about the family which served the nation. The community, if the deceased’s wife Meemasha agrees, will look after the education expenditure of her children until they too serve the nation by being in the defence forces,” Somesh, a distant relative of Sarathi, who is also the president of ‘Kuruba Community’ (shepherd community) said.
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