A salute to corona warriors: IAF jets shower petals on covid hospitals

New Delhi: A fleet of military jets on Sunday carried out a spectacular fly-past over the national capital as part of a nationwide exercise to express gratitude to lakhs of doctors, paramedics, sanitation staff and other front-line workers engaged in fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

The military jets, including Sukhoi-30 MKI, MiG-29 and Jaguar, flew over Rajpath, Delhi's centrepiece boulevard, and then orbited over the city for around 30 minutes from 11 am.

Premier transport aircraft C-130 also carried out a separate fly-past covering the Delhi and the NCR region. The aircraft flew at an approximate height of 500 metres to 1000 metres keeping aerospace safety in mind.

Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat on Friday announced that the three services will carry out a series of activities to thank the "corona warriors".

The thanks-giving activities started with laying of wreaths at the national police memorial in Delhi to honour the police personnel deployed in the enforcement of the nationwide lockdown, officials said.

Besides Delhi, the Indian Air Force is carrying out fly-pasts in several other cities including Mumbai, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Patna and Lucknow, Srinagar, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Coimbatore and Thiruvananthapuram, they said.

Helicopters from the IAF and the Indian Navy are also flying over hospitals treating coronavirus patients and shower petals as a tribute to the corona warriors.

Military bands are also playing "patriotic tunes" outside various civil hospitals treating coronavirus patients across the country.

The Eastern Naval Command and the Western Naval Command are illuminating a number of ships at anchorage from 7.30 pm to midnight.