Flt Lt Deepika Sheoran

Flight Lieutenant  Deepika Sheoran hailed from Loharu in the Bhiwani district of Haryana and was born in the year 1990. Daughter of Shri Dalip Singh Sheoran and Smt Prem Lata, Flt Lt Deepika was the eldest among three siblings with one younger brother and one sister. Her father was an executive engineer with the Haryana Public Health Department. She was a brilliant student and completed her B Tech in computer engineering from Faridabad. Subsequently, she got a placement in an MNC at Noida and also was selected for the army, but she was keen to join the IAF. Since her childhood, she had been passionate about flying aircraft, and always dreamt of serving in the Indian Air Force. So when she got selected for the IAF, she did not think twice, even though she was joining as an engineer in the aeronautical branch of the IAF and not as a pilot. She was commissioned on 07 Jan 2013 as a flying officer, after completing her training at Air Force Technical College at Bangalore. 

After serving for some time, she got married to Kuldeep Dalal on 22 Nov 2015, who was serving as assistant commandant with the Indian Coast Guard. In 2016, she got posted to the Air Force station at Port Blair. She was very happy to get the posting as her husband Kuldeep Dalal was also serving as assistant Commandant with Cost Guard at Port Blair. 

Air Transport Operation: 22 July 2016

In July 2016, Flt Lt Deepika Sheoran was serving at the Air Force base in Port Blair.  On 22 July 2016, 33 Squadron based at Air Force base at Sulur in Tamil Nadu under the command of Group Captain Ashish Kaul, was tasked to undertake an air transport operation. The task was to carry men and material from Chennai to the Air Force station at Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Flt Lt Deepika Sheoran boarded the aircraft as a passenger to go to Port Blair to join her unit. The aircraft crew included Flt Lt Pushpender Badsara as captain, Fg Offr Pankaj Kumar Nandal as co-pilot, and Flt Lt Kunal Barpatte as Navigator of the aircraft.

Flt Lt Deepika Sheoran along with the aircrew took off in an AN-32 (K-2743), a twin-engine turboprop transport aircraft, from Tambaram Air Force Station in Chennai at 8.30 am, with 29 people on board, including six crew members, 11 Indian Air Force personnel; two Indian Army soldiers; one each from the Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard; and eight defence civilians working with Naval Armament Depot (NAD) and the material load. The aircraft was one of the 50-odd medium-lift tactical aircraft upgraded with air-frame strengthening and newer avionics under the $398 million (Rs 1,965 crore) contract inked with Ukraine in June 2009. The aircraft was expected to land at Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands at 11.30 am. However, at 9.12 a.m. i.e. around 42 minutes after takeoff and about 151 nautical miles east of Chennai, the aircraft lost contact with the ground radar and went missing.

The IAF, the Navy, and the Coast Guard mounted a massive search and rescue operation. As many as 18 warships and vessels, as well as two Poseidon-8I, one C-130J Super Hercules, and three Dornier aircraft, were dispatched to the choppy seas in a “probable crash zone” to hunt for the missing Russia-made plane. Indian Navy and Coast Guard ships were deployed to scan the surface of the sea as part of the search operations after the aircraft went off the radar. Also, data from Indian satellites was scanned to locate the missing aircraft. The aircraft was not fitted with an underwater locator beacon, which made the search operations even more difficult. Despite massive search operations by the Navy, Indian Air Force, and Coast Guard, the aircraft and the passengers on board could not be traced. 

This disappearance kicked off India’s biggest search operation for a missing plane on the sea.  Despite massive search operations conducted jointly by the Navy, Indian Air Force, and the Coast Guards, the aircraft and passengers could not be traced.  The aircraft was not fitted with an underwater locator beacon, making the search operations difficult. Even scanning of data from Indian satellites failed to locate the missing aircraft. Consequently, on 15 September 2016, the search and rescue mission was called off and all 29 people on board were declared "presumed dead".

Flt Lt Deepika Sheoran was a dedicated and competent air warrior with a strong desire to serve the nation. However, her life was cut short and a committed soldier was lost in this tragic accident. Flt Lt Deepika Sheoran is survived by her father Shri Dalip Singh Sheoran, mother Smt Prem Lata, brother Anubhav and a sister.