Group Captain Group captain (Gp Capt or G/C) is a senior officer rank used by some air forces, with origins from the Royal Air Force. The rank is used by air forces of many Commonwealth of Nations, countries that have historical British influence. Group cap ...

Kambampati Nachiketa Rao, VM is a retired officer of the

Indian Air Force The Indian Air Force (IAF) (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the air force, air arm of the Indian Armed Forces. Its primary mission is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial warfare during armed conflicts. It was officially established on 8 Octob ...

. While carrying out an airstrike on Pakistani positions in Batalik sector during the

Kargil War The Kargil War, was fought between India and Pakistan from May to July 1999 in the Kargil district of Ladakh, then part of the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir (state), Jammu and Kashmir and along the Line of Control (LoC). In In ...

, his aircraft experienced an engine flameout. Nachiketa ejected from his

MiG-21 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 (; NATO reporting name: Fishbed) is a supersonic jet aircraft, jet fighter aircraft, fighter and interceptor aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan, Mikoyan-Gurevich OKB, Design Bureau in the Soviet Union. Its nicknames in ...

Bis and was held in Pakistani custody under platoon commander Rao Tahseen Ali. He is presently a captain at Indigo Airlines.

Early life

Nachiketa was born on 31 May 1973 to Sri. K. R. K. Sastry and Smt. K. Laxmi. He studied at

Kendriya Vidyalaya The Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan () is a system of Government of India, central government schools in India. Governed by the Ministry of Education (India), Ministry of Education, Government of India. , it has a total of 1,257 schools in India, ...

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...

, and joined the

National Defence Academy The National Defence Academy (NDA) is the joint defence service training institute of the Indian Armed Forces. Here, cadets of the Indian Army, Indian Navy, and Indian Air Force train together before they go on to their respective service a ...

, Khadakwasla.

Kargil War

During the

, Nachiketa was a flight lieutenant and a

Mikoyan MiG-27 The Mikoyan MiG-27 (; NATO reporting name: Flogger-D/J) is a variable-sweep wing, variable-sweep attack aircraft, ground-attack aircraft, originally built by the Mikoyan, Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau in the Soviet Union and later licence-pro ...

pilot from No. 9 Squadron IAF (Wolfpack) who took part in a strike in the Batalik Sector on 26 May 1999. Armed with 80mm rockets and the aircraft's 30mm cannon, Nachiketa attacked an enemy position. During the operation, the aircraft took a hit from a Pakistan Army

MANPADS Man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS or MPADS) are portable shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles. They are guided weapons and are a threat to low-flying aircraft, especially helicopters and also used against low-flying cruise missi ...

, and Nachiketa was forced to eject. After ejecting, Nachiketa evaded immediate capture but after two to three hours, a Pakistani army patrol captured him. Nachiketa continued to fire his service pistol until he ran out of bullets. After his capture he was beaten up by Pakistani soldiers until a senior officer Capt Rao Tahseen Ali intervened. Speaking to NDTV in 2016, Nachiketa said:

The jawans who had captured me were trying to manhandle me and maybe trying to kill me because, for them, I was just an enemy pilot who had fired on their locations from the air... Fortunately, the officer who came was very mature. He realised the situation that I am now a captive and now I need not be handled that way. So he was able to control them, which was a big effort because they were very aggressive at that stage.

Life as a prisoner

Nachiketa remained a

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

(POW) for eight days. He was first taken to an undisclosed location in the Batalik. After a two-hour wait, he was taken by helicopter to

Skardu Skardu (, Tibetan script: སྐར་མདོ, ) is a city located in Pakistan-administered Gilgit-Baltistan in the disputed Kashmir region. The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kas ...

. He was interrogated by the Director of Operations of the

Pakistan Air Force The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) (; ) is the aerial warfare branch of the Pakistan Armed Forces, tasked primarily with the aerial defence of Pakistan, with a secondary role of providing air support to the Pakistan Army and Pakistan Navy when re ...

, Group Captain Kaiser Tufail. This interrogation was called "very civil" by Tufail, who said it was a casual talk between two officers rather than between a captor and a POW. Tufail said his mandate was to inquire the circumstances of the ejection and the mission.

Repatriation

Nachiketa was handed over to the

International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a humanitarian organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is a three-time Nobel Prize laureate. The organization has played an instrumental role in the development of rules of war and ...

in Pakistan and was subsequently repatriated over the Indian border check post at

Attari Attari, also spelled Atari, is a village of Amritsar district in the Punjab state of India, 3 km from the Indo-Pakistani border at Wagah. It is situated 25 km west of the Sikh holy city of Amritsar, and is the last Indian station o ...

on the Amritsar-to-Lahore road on 3 June 1999. Nachiketa described his experiences in captivity as "difficult to be described in words" and said he felt "death would have been a better solution".

Subsequent career

Nachiketa was promoted to

group captain Group captain (Gp Capt or G/C) is a senior officer rank used by some air forces, with origins from the Royal Air Force. The rank is used by air forces of many Commonwealth of Nations, countries that have historical British influence. Group cap ...

and flew

Ilyushin Il-78 The Ilyushin Il-78 (; NATO reporting name Midas) is a Soviet/Russian four-engined aerial refueling tanker based on the Il-76 strategic airlifter. Design and development The Soviet Union's first dedicated tanker aircraft were variants of pre ...

mid-air refuelling Aerial refueling ( en-us), or aerial refuelling (en-gb), also referred to as air refueling, in-flight refueling (IFR), air-to-air refueling (AAR), and tanking, is the process of transferring aviation fuel from one aircraft (the tanker) to anot ...

transport aircraft with No. 78 Squadron IAF, stationed at

Agra Agra ( ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is the ...

. He suffers from long-term back pain due to an injury sustained during the parachute landing in the war. After retirement from the IAF as a group captain, Nachiketa joined Indigo Airlines as an airline pilot, serving as a

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

flying the

Airbus A320neo The Airbus A320neo family is an incremental development of the A320 family of narrow-body airliners produced by Airbus. The A320neo family (''neo'' being Greek for "new", as well as an acronym for "new engine option") is based on the Airbus A3 ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nachiketa, Kambampati 1973 births Living people Indian Air Force officers Indian military aviators People of the Kargil War Shot-down aviators Indian prisoners of war Prisoners of war held by Pakistan Recipients of the Vayu Sena Medal Kendriya Vidyalaya alumni