KOZHIKODE: The body of flight lieutenant S. Achu Dev, who was killed in the Sukhoi-30 air crash at Tezpur, Assam, was buried on the premises of their house, ‘Thannikkottu,’ at Panniyurkulam, near Pantheerankavu, with full military honours on Saturday. The body was kept in the house after it was brought from the Shanghumugham Air Force base in a special flight. His parents V.P. Sahadevan and mother Jayashree had accompanied the coffin.
Mr Sahadevan is an ex-employee of VSSC, Thumba, and Jayashree had worked with the Audio and Visual Reprographics Centre. Ports minister Ramachandran Kadann-appally, MLAs K. Muralee-dharan, P.T.A. Rahim, V.K.C. Mammedkoya, A. Pradeepkumar, district collector U.V. Jose and mayor Thottathil Raveendran paid their last respects. Flight lieutenant Sanjay Ratnan led the nearly 60-member military team that honoured the martyr. A 21-member band team of the Air Force station, Sulur, offered tributes to him with a 21-gun salute. From Pune, flight lieutenants P.R. Rahul, A.K. Singh, Shubham Singh and Sashank Ram attended the funeral.
Achu Dev was killed along with squadron leader D. Pankaj on May 23. The Sukhoi-30’s black box was found last Sunday when the ground search teams reached the accident site on the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border. It had lost radar and radio contact with the controlling station around 11.10 am on May 23. The fighter plane had crashed near Arunachal Pradesh’s Doulasang area, adjoining China, 60 km north of Tezpur.
