As the pilot. it had covered hardly one

As I was moving up and down the railway bridge, I heard a terrible sound. I looked into the direction from where sound was heard.

I saw an aeroplane burning. I at once ran to the place of occurrence. The scene which I saw was a moving scene of human misery. An aeroplane had met with an accident. It had taken off from the Indira Gandhi Aerodrome, Delhi. It was bound for Madras. It carried 100 pas­sengers besides the pilot.

It had covered hardly one hundred kilome­ters when the trouble with the engine started. The pilot tried his best to set the engine right. When all his attempts failed, he decided to land. As the plane was gliding down, it struck against a hill.

It crashed down with a terrible noise. The engine caught fire. The plane split to pieces. The passengers in the plane cried for help. Their cries were heart­rending. When I reached the scene of accident, I found many passen­gers dead. I pulled out the two passengers safe. The rest could not be saved.

The place within an area of half a kilometers was all filled with the little pieces of the body of the plane. The two passengers whom I had saved had serious injuries on their bodies. The skins of their bodies were burnt.

I ran back to police station. A rescue party at once started for the place of occurrence. The first thing that the rescue party did was to extinguish fire. Buck­ets full of sand were thrown on the fire. After half an hour’s struggle, the fire was brought under control. There lay dead bodies of the passen­gers and the pilot. It was a ghastly scene. The whole scene was filled by the small pieces of the smashed aeroplane.

The air was also charged with heat. I had never seen such a sight of misery before in my life. The two living passengers were carried on the stretcher to the town hospi­tal. When they recovered their senses, police recorded their statements. The dead bodies were also carried in a truck to the nearest police station. Men of Civil Aviation reached the village to hold an enquiry into the accident. It was then I felt how dangerous it was to fly in the air.

The officials who had come from Delhi to hold an enquiry praised my efforts in hav­ing saved two lives. They mentioned my name in their report with re­spect. They recommended that I should be suitably rewarded for my uncommon courage and determination.