Haryana: President Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday, October 29, took a sortie in a Rafale fighter jet from the Ambala Air Force Station in Haryana, becoming the first female Indian President to do so.
The supreme commander of the Indian armed forces received a ceremonial guard of honour at the airbase before embarking on the flight, marking another milestone in her engagement with the armed forces.
The sortie comes nearly two years after President Murmu took her first fighter jet flight in a Sukhoi-30 MKI from Tezpur Air Force Station in Assam in April 2023.
That flight had made her the third President and second woman head of state to undertake such a sortie. Former Presidents A P J Abdul Kalam and Pratibha Patil had earlier taken sorties in Sukhoi-30 MKI aircraft in 2006 and 2009, respectively.
A statement issued by the Rashtrapati Bhavan ahead of the sortie had confirmed, “The President of India, Smt Droupadi Murmu, will visit Ambala, Haryana where she will take a sortie in Rafale.”
The Rafale aircraft, built by French aerospace manufacturer Dassault Aviation, was formally inducted into the Indian Air Force in September 2020 at the same airbase. The first five aircraft, received from France in July 2020, were inducted into the 17 Squadron, known as the ‘Golden Arrows’.
The Rafale jets have been instrumental in several key operations since their induction. They were used during Operation Sindoor, launched on May 7 in response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, which targeted terror infrastructure across territories controlled by Pakistan. The operation continued for four days before both sides agreed to de-escalate on May 10.
In 2019, the Indian Air Force issued a Request for Information for 114 Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) at a cost of about USD 18 billion, one of the world’s largest defence procurement programmes. Dassault Aviation is regarded as a leading contender, alongside Lockheed Martin’s F-21, Boeing’s F/A-18, and the Eurofighter Typhoon.
