Abhinandan Varthaman Retires From IAF, Joins Goa-Based Airline As Commercial Pilot: Report
The former Indian Air Force pilot, popularly known for the air duel war between India and Pakistan in 2019, Abhinandan Varthaman has reportedly shifted his career to new aviation career with a private airline as a commercial pilot.
Varthaman, a former Group Captain and Vir Chakra awardee, has taken up a job as a commercial pilot with regional airline FLY91 at Goa airport, news agency PTI reports quoting sources. The report says he was hired with the airline in August.
Varthaman has not made any official statements about it so far. A FLY91 spokesman also refused to provide information about individual workers, saying it was a personal issue.
In March 2024, FLY91 first entered commercial service, and has now six ATR 72-600 aircraft in service. The airline has its operational bases in Goa and Hyderabad.
A month after the Pulwama terror attack which killed 40 CRPF personnel, Varthaman had become a national sensation in February 2019 due to the military stand-off between India and Pakistan.
This was followed by an air strike in a Jaish-e-Mohammed training camp in Balakot, Pakistan by India. The next day, Pakistan launched a retaliatory air strike against the other nuclear-armed neighbour, further inflating the tensions between the two nations.
In the subsequent air combat on February 27, 2019, Varthaman was a pilot of MiG-21 Bison when he fought Pakistani planes.
The report states that Varthaman had managed to shoot down a Pakistani F-16 before his own aircraft was hit and he had to eject.
They were detained for three days in the Pakistani custody. Varthaman, however was ejected from his damaged aircraft and was taken prisoner by the Pakistanis for three days.
He was finally released by Pakistan on the night of March 1, 2019, ending a tense episode that had begun spooking them about a possible escalation of the war between the two countries.
Varthaman was wounded while being ejected and subsequent events.
In 2019 he also received the Vir Chakra, India’s third highest wartime gallantry Award, latter in the year. The citation acknowledged the way he behaved in the air above and cited his actions as being marked with an ‘exceptional sense of duty’.
After roughly 22 years of service in the Indian Air Force, Varthaman has now allegedly started a new chapter in his aviation career.
The move to FLY91 is a shift from the military fighter aircraft to civilian passenger aircraft, and it’s a new chapter in the life of the pilot who became one of the most recognizable faces of the 2019 India Pakistan military standoff.