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The wreckage of the two Jaguar fighter aircraft, which went missing during a sortie on Friday, was found at an altitude of over 4,000 metres in north Kashmir on Saturday.
Search teams also found the body of Flt Lt M Mayur, one of the pilots who perished in the crash. The wreckage was found in the Sonmarg mountain range near Shutkari.
His identity was established based on various tests conducted on the recovered remains, according to official sources in Srinagar. The teams also recovered the crucial flight data recorder.
State police teams assisted by locals and army personnel located the wreckage of the second plane nearly 1km away on Saturday afternoon in a deep gorge at a location 13,000ft above sea level. Search teams called off the operation in the evening because of darkness and extreme cold.
The other deceased pilot has been identified as Flt Lt G Oberoi.
Earlier, IAF choppers located the wreckage of the two deep-penetration strike aircraft strewn over an area of 1km near the wind-swept, snowy peaks between Sonmarg and Gund.
An IAF spokesman said search teams comprising professional mountaineers from the High Altitude Warfare School.
"The helicopter pilots sighted parts of aircraft strewn on deep snow amidst rocky patches and there was no space to
allow the choppers to land and investigate," he said. But they guided the search teams to the wreckage.
The fighter planes, along with two other Jaguars, were on a formation valley training exercise when they entered an area
of strong turbulence. While two Jaguar pilots managed to pull their aircraft out of turbulence and return to their base at
Ambala in Haryana, the other two aircraft lost contact with ground control.
