Flt Lt Suhas Biswas belly-landed a burning Devon carrying six passengers near Sandila on 3 February 1952. Everyone walked away.
Port Engine Fire out of Lucknow
The port engine of de Havilland Devon HW 516 caught fire soon after take-off from Lucknow, at about 1800 hours on 3 February 1952. Flight Lieutenant Suhas Biswas was bound for Delhi with six passengers, senior Army officers among them.
He tried to put the fire out. When that failed, he decided to force-land, with the light already fading.
On the way down the engine came off the aircraft, which became hard to control. He recovered it, shut down the remaining engine and put the Devon down on its belly on unfamiliar ground. A Deccan Herald report places the landing at a village near Sandila railway station in Uttar Pradesh.
Seats from the Wreck
All on board walked away unhurt, and Biswas was the last out. The Air Chief Marshal later had the passenger seats taken from the wreck and given to the survivors, each with a brass plate describing the incident.
Biswas, service number 2883, was serving with the Air HQ and Communications Flight. His was the first Ashoka Chakra to an Indian Air Force officer, announced on 26 January 1953.
One database entry records his death in a Devon crash in the Nilgiris in September 1957. Sources differ on the day, giving both 1 and 12 September.
What the citation recorded
The official citation could not be read for this article. As given by the Bharat Rakshak database, it recorded that on 3 February 1952 he was flying a Devon with six passengers from Lucknow to Delhi when the port engine caught fire; that he chose to force-land in failing light after the engine came away; and that he landed on ground he had not reconnoitred. This is a summary, not the official wording.
Cover image: Robert Prummel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Resized for this page. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ashoka_Chakra_India_De_drie_medailles_van_voor_1967.jpg