Abhinandan Varthaman Flew a MiG-21 at a Pakistani Strike Package on 27 February 2019, Ejected Over Pakistan and Walked Back Into India 60 Hours Later

At 0955 hours on 27 February 2019, a large Pakistani formation was detected heading for the Line of Control, the de facto border in Kashmir. At Srinagar air base, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was on what the Air Force calls Operational Readiness Platform duty, which The Tribune explains as pilot and jet being ready to take off within a minute or so of an order.

The order came at about 1000 hours. His Vir Chakra citation, the official record of what he did next, describes “a large force of Pakistan Air Force fighter aircraft” that included “advanced fourth generation F-16 and JF-17”. They carried air-to-air missiles that fire from beyond the pilot’s sight, plus stand-off weapons, which are released from a distance. Abhinandan had been posted to a MiG-21 Bison squadron since 19 May 2018. Despite “the enemy’s immense numerical and technological superiority”, the citation says, he engaged the package “with utter disregard to his personal safety.”

Thirteen days after Pulwama

Pulwama came first. On 14 February a suicide bomber drove a vehicle carrying over 100 kg of explosives into a bus in Jammu and Kashmir, and 40 personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force died, PTI reported in The Hindu. Indian aircraft bombed a camp of the group behind the attack, Jaish-e-Mohammed, at Balakot in Pakistan on 26 February. India’s Ministry of External Affairs called it a “non-military anti-terror pre-emptive strike”. How India came to answer attacks that way is told in how India answers an attack, and this piece stays with the next morning.

Pakistan replied with its air force. That day the ministry’s spokesman said Pakistan “has responded this morning by using its Air Force to target military installations on the Indian side”, and that India’s “high state of readiness and alertness” had foiled it. A Defence Ministry statement of 5 March named the Indian aircraft engaged, Mirage-2000, Su-30 and MiG-21 Bison, and said the Pakistani aircraft were “forced to withdraw in a hurry, which is also evident from the large missed distances of the weapons dropped by them.”

Pakistan’s own account was different. AFP reported that Pakistan said it had downed two Indian fighters, while India confirmed one loss. PTI later described Pakistan’s claim as one aircraft falling on its side of the Line of Control and the other on the Indian side.

What the citation says he did

It reads as a sequence of decisions. On the intercept leg Abhinandan was given updates on air threats “flying at very high altitudes.” He also searched the low airspace with his airborne intercept radar, the fighter’s own radar. What he found, the citation says, came from “exceptional air combat acumen and knowledge of the enemy’s tactics”: an enemy aircraft flying low, placed to ambush the Indian interceptors.

He “alerted the other formation pilots” to the surprise threat, then gathered his wingman into an offensive formation against Pakistani aircraft that by then were dropping weapons on Indian Army positions. The citation calls the manoeuvre “audacious and aggressive” and says it forced the enemy into “tactical chaos”. Every Pakistani aircraft turned back, it records, including the rear ones that had not yet launched their air-to-ground weapons.

Next comes the sentence that the later argument turns on. In the wording The Tribune reported when the medal was presented, “He pursued a retreating enemy fighter bomber aircraft and in the ensuing aerial combat, shot down an F-16 jet with his on-board missile.” The citation goes on to say that an enemy aircraft fired multiple missiles able to strike from beyond visual range, and that one hit his MiG-21, “forcing him to eject in enemy territory.”

Ninety seconds near Nowshera

A fuller picture comes from The Tribune’s 2026 account of the engagement. It has him at 15,000 feet when he spotted an F-16 at 8,000 feet near Nowshera, close to the Line of Control, and told the rest of the patrol over secure radio, “I am going after him.” A chase of about 90 seconds followed, at roughly 900 km an hour. The aircraft climbed to 26,000 feet, dropped a few thousand feet and climbed again, each pilot trying to get a missile “lock”.

In that telling an R-73 air-to-air missile left the MiG-21 and brought down the F-16, and another Pakistani pilot’s missile struck Abhinandan’s jet, by then a couple of kilometres on the far side of the line. The paper reads the citation’s “technological superiority” as the F-16 being better equipped than the MiG-21 in missiles, radar and avionics.

He ejected at a fairly high altitude. A pilot’s parachute cannot be steered, and the wind carried him at least 7 km into Pakistan-held Kashmir.

Into a stream, then into custody

Reuters described the footage from the ground. A Pakistani soldier, ankle-deep in a stream, shielded the pilot from angry villagers and shouted “Enough!” as they struck him. The Tribune adds that Abhinandan was injured while trying to destroy classified documents and evade the villagers. In a second video, posted by Pakistan’s information ministry, he was blindfolded. He said, “I’ve got hurt and I would request some water,” gave his name and rank, and fended off further questions: “I’m not supposed to tell you that.”

India’s first public word was guarded. That Wednesday the Ministry of External Affairs said it had lost one MiG-21: “The pilot is missing in action. Pakistan has claimed that he is in their custody. We are ascertaining the facts.” It summoned Pakistan’s acting high commissioner, said it “expects his immediate and safe return”, and objected to Pakistan’s “vulgar display of an injured personnel of the Indian Air Force”, which it said violated international humanitarian law and the Geneva Convention. Reuters noted that the Indian government had not yet confirmed his identity.

Sixty hours

Later that Wednesday Pakistan’s army released a video in which he was unblindfolded and holding a cup of tea. Geo News reported his answers. Asked whether he had been treated well, he said: “Yes, I have been. And I would like to put this on record that I will not change my statement if I go back to my country also.” Asked about his aircraft, he said: “I am sorry, I am not supposed to tell you this, but I am sure you have found the wreckage.” About the tea he said: “The tea is fantastic, thank you.” Reuters quotes him saying the Pakistani officers “have looked after me well, they are thorough gentlemen.”

A captor made these recordings, and India objected to them at the time. The citation, written later, gives the Air Force’s own reading of his conduct: in captivity he “continued to display exceptional resolve in dealing with the adversary in a stoic, brave and dignified manner”. In the videos he gave his name, rank and service number, as The Quint’s report of the Pakistani army footage records, and said nothing about his mission.

The next day, Thursday 28 February, Prime Minister Imran Khan told a joint session of Pakistan’s parliament, “As a peace gesture we are releasing the Indian pilot tomorrow,” AFP reported. He added, “I am afraid of miscalculations.” That evening Abhinandan’s father, retired Air Marshal Simhakutty Varthaman, and his mother flew from Chennai to Delhi on the way to Amritsar and Wagah. When passengers learned who they were, The Week reported, they let the couple get off first, and video showed people clapping and cheering as they walked out. The father had flown the MiG-21 himself, according to The News Minute, and during the 1999 Kargil war was chief operations officer at Gwalior air base.

Wagah, 1 March

Twice on Friday, Pakistan changed the handover time, according to ANI as reported by Scroll. Abhinandan walked across the Attari-Wagah crossing onto the Indian side at about 9.20 pm, accompanied by Group Captain Joy Thomas Kurien, the defence attache at the Indian High Commission in Pakistan. “Good to be back,” he told officials, according to the Hindustan Times.

Air Vice Marshal R.G.K. Kapoor spoke for the Air Force at the border. “Wing Commander Abhinandan has just been handed over to us,” he said. “He will be taken now for a detailed medical checkup. This check up is mandatory as he had to eject from an airplane which would have put his entire body under stress.” Counted from the combat on the morning of Wednesday 27 February, the time in custody was roughly 60 hours. Press Trust of India described him as held for three days.

The evidence the Air Force put on the table

Over the following weeks the Air Force argued its case in public. It showed portions of an AIM-120C-5 AMRAAM, a US-made air-to-air missile, as evidence that F-16s were in the fight, The War Zone notes, since Pakistan’s F-16s are its only aircraft that can carry the weapon. A Defence Ministry statement of 5 March said “use of F-16 by PAF and multiple launches of AMRAAM were conclusively observed”, that a Su-30’s “prompt and correct tactical action” defeated one of the missiles, and that parts of an AMRAAM fell east of Rajouri in Jammu and Kashmir, injuring a civilian on the ground.

At a briefing on 8 April, Kapoor showed two still radar images. The Air Force said an airborne warning and control aircraft had tracked Pakistani jets in three groups, one of JF-17s and two with F-16s, and that one F-16 track vanished from the screen after Abhinandan engaged. Its written statement claimed “irrefutable evidence” that F-16s were used and that a MiG-21 Bison shot one down. Kapoor added that more material existed but was being withheld “due to security and confidentiality concerns”, according to The War Zone.

Foreign Policy, the US magazine whose reporting later questioned the kill, agrees with the Air Force on one narrower point. It wrote that evidence “suggests that Pakistan’s F-16s were involved in the battle”, because remnants of a US-made AIM-120 were found near the site and only the F-16 can fire that weapon.

The claim Pakistan denies

On whether an F-16 was lost, the accounts conflict, so each is given here by name.

India’s government and Air Force say Abhinandan shot one down, and the Vir Chakra citation records it. Pakistan says it lost no F-16, and The War Zone reports that it also denies using them in the action. Pakistan’s military published a photograph of debris it said came from two R-73 and two R-77 missiles recovered at the MiG-21’s crash site, as evidence, The War Zone writes, that he never fired. The same article noted that an R-73 which had worked as designed would also be missing its middle section, though the crash could explain the damage too.

US reporting split. A report in Foreign Policy on 4 April 2019, citing two unnamed senior US defence officials, said US personnel had counted Pakistan’s F-16s and found none missing, and wrote that India’s claim “appears to be wrong”. The same article allowed that Abhinandan may have locked on, fired and “genuinely believed he scored a hit.” The next day a US defence department spokesman told the Hindustan Times it was “not aware” of any such investigation, and Kapoor repeated that “one MiG 21 Bison of the IAF shot down one F-16”. The War Zone, a US defence site, wrote that India had shown only two still radar images, far from “irrefutable”. The day after the medal was presented, 23 November 2021, Pakistan’s Foreign Office said: “Pakistan categorically rejects the entirely baseless Indian claims that a Pakistani F-16 aircraft was shot down by an Indian pilot.”

Pakistan’s awards run the other way. In August 2019 President Arif Alvi announced the Sitara-e-Jurat for Wing Commander Muhammad Nouman Ali, who is credited in the announcement with downing Abhinandan’s jet, and the Tamgha-e-Shujaat for Squadron Leader Hassan Mahmood Siddiqui, The Hindu reported.

India’s own record of that morning has one more entry. A Mi-17 helicopter crashed at Budgam after take-off from Srinagar while the fighters were engaged. The new Air Chief Marshal, R.K.S. Bhadauria, confirmed on 4 October 2019 that it was friendly fire: “It was a big mistake, action being initiated against two IAF personnel.” All six on board and a civilian on the ground died, The Hindu records.

The medal, and the squadron after it

The Defence Ministry announced its Independence Day gallantry list on 14 August 2019. Press Trust of India reported that Abhinandan had been given the Vir Chakra, India’s third-highest wartime gallantry medal. The same list carried at least five pilots from the Balakot mission, and Minty Agarwal, an officer who played a key role as flight controller during the Pakistani retaliation and received the Yudh Seva Medal.

Abhinandan flew again on 2 September 2019, according to The Tribune, with Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa accompanying him on his first sortie after the ejection, at Pathankot in Punjab. The citation’s closing sentence gives what the service made of the episode: “His actions raised the morale of the armed forces in general and the IAF in particular.”

The physical medal waited. Covid protocols delayed the ceremony, and on 22 November 2021 President Ram Nath Kovind presented the Vir Chakra to Group Captain Abhinandan Varthaman at Rashtrapati Bhavan. On 3 September 2026, seven years after the combat, The Tribune described him as Group Captain Abhinandan Varthaman (retd), having left the Air Force.