In the summer of 1999, after a gap of almost 28 years, the
Indian Air Force received orders on May 26 to take the fight to the enemy. The whine of jet engines echoed across airfields in the north — from Srinagar, Awantipur, Pathankot, and Adampur — along with feverish activity across these bases, all driven by a single objective: to push back Pakistani intruders who had occupied heights overlooking National Highway-1A.
The extent of the intrusion stretched from Dras in the west to Batalik in the east.
The air-to-ground operations that pilots were tasked with would mark a turning point. Pilots trained primarily for aerial combat at altitudes of 14,000 to 18,000 feet were now required to deliver weapons against ground targets at those same extreme heights.
The Indian
Air Force was called in to support soldiers who were, quite literally, fighting an uphill battle against a well-entrenched and well-supported enemy. The approaches to the posts occupied by Pakistani forces were treacherous—jagged, windswept ridgelines offering no cover.
From these vantage points, Pakistani troops could detect movement from miles away and rain down artillery and machine-gun fire on exposed Indian soldiers.
Leading up to Operation Safed Sagar
In the early days of May 1999, the Indian Army began detecting infiltration in a crescent-shaped arc stretching from Mushkoh Valley in Dras in the west, curving upward through Kargil, and extending toward Batalik.
By mid-May, the scale of the intrusion became clear. A patrol led by Lt Saurabh Kalia was captured and brutally tortured. As the crisis deepened, attention in India shifted sharply from the ongoing Cricket World Cup in England to the conflict unfolding in the mountains.
With the situation escalating, the Cabinet Committee on Security, chaired by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, cleared the Indian Air Force to strike Pakistani positions perched on the heights.
No other air force had fought at such altitudes. The IAF’s Tosa Maidan firing range—used for high-altitude training—was located at roughly 3 km (10,000 feet), far below the 5,000-metre battle zones where Pakistani troops were entrenched. The Air Force had to effectively write its own manual for high-altitude aerial warfare.
Before Safed Sagar
On May 17, 1999, Wing Commander (later Air Commodore) Anil Kumar Sinha, commanding officer of the 129 Helicopter Unit—the famed Nubra Warriors—was under intense pressure at Hindan Air Force Station near Delhi.
He was under the scrutiny of Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Western Air Command, Air Marshal Vinod Patney, a Vir Chakra awardee from the 1965 war, who was conducting an inspection of the unit.
A day later, Sinha was summoned again. He soon found himself unexpectedly deployed to Srinagar.
"Right after the meeting I went back to Hindan, from there an Avro took me to Chandigarh, where an Il-76 was waiting for me and it took me to Srinagar," Air Commodore Sinha remembered twenty-seven years later.
He would soon be appointed helicopter task force commander, while Group Captain Arvindra Ramachandra Oak became the fighter task force commander. Oak would later receive the Yudh Seva Medal and go on to become Chief Test Pilot at HAL’s Nashik division.
The IAF could deploy only Mi-17 transport helicopters in an attack role at these altitudes. The more powerful Mi-25 attack helicopters could not operate in the thin air.
Both Sinha and Oak began preparing for operations in near secrecy. Meanwhile, at Srinagar airfield, IAF’s 51 Squadron "Sword Arm" continued routine operations.
Air Marshal GS Bedi (retd), then a Squadron Leader with the unit, recalled: "One day the army's Ground Liaison Officer (GLO), we thought that it would be about some joint exercise, but we were told about the intrusion and asked to be prepared."
During this period, an IAF Canberra reconnaissance aircraft from 106 Squadron, piloted by Sqn Ldr A. Perumal, was hit by a Pakistani Stinger missile but managed to land safely at Srinagar.
The IAF goes to war
On the evening of May 25, the Indian Air Force received the operational signal. That same day, Air Chief Marshal AY Tipnis met Oak and Sinha at Srinagar Air Base.
Air Commodore Sinha was scheduled to take the Air Chief to Kargil, but they had to turn back from Dras due to bad weather.
The next morning, Indian aircraft began striking Pakistani positions.
Oak and Sinha had carefully designed the operational plan. Air Commodore Sinha explained: "Initially we planned that choppers will be the main strike force, but we then decided on a synchronised attack. The fighters would strike first, this would force the enemy to keep their head down and then the more vulnerable helicopters would come fire rocket salvoes."
Operations initially focused on Tololing and Tiger Hill. Helicopters flew low, popped up, and fired rocket salvos at enemy positions.
However, the high altitude created technical challenges. Gun sights calibrated for lower altitudes were inaccurate, causing weapons to overshoot targets. Bombing also posed risks.
Air Marshal Bedi explained, "Because of the nature of the cliffs, a bomb that missed its target by 50 meters in the plains, could land as much as 2 kms away."
Air Commodore Sinha later noted, "Radio intercepts of Pakistani troops proved that our attacks had a devastating effect on the enemy. Ab hum capture hone wale hain, is what was heard on those tapes."
Meanwhile, fighter aircraft continued sustained strikes across the sector.
Early setbacks
On the following day, Flt Lt Kambhampati Nachiketa, callsign Hyena-2, was forced to eject from his MiG-27 after an engine failure and was captured by Pakistani forces.
Former Chief of the Air Staff ACM BS Dhanoa, then commanding officer of 17 Squadron, recalled: "Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja from my squadron was on a reconnaissance mission. He joined the search for Nachiketa. As he was orbiting the area he came into the missile range of the Pakistanis and was shot down. He glided his plane into a valley and ejected. He landed behind enemy lines and was killed in cold blood by the Pakistanis."
The next day brought another loss.
Air Commodore Sinha said, "On 28th, as we were taking off, two of our helicopters became unserviceable and we had to replace those helicopters. Unfortunately one of those helicopters did not have counter measure devices or flares to fool enemy missiles. I was leading the four ship mission. We had good effect on target, the enemy fired as many as 21 missiles at our formation as we counted on video, unfortunately one of the missiles hit the third helicopter in our formation that was flown by Flight Lieutenant Subramaniam Muhilan."
These setbacks forced a major reassessment of tactics.
The IAF re-strategises
At the Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment (ASTE) in Bengaluru, work was underway to operationalise precision strike capabilities.
In 1996, the IAF had begun integrating Mirage-2000 and Jaguar aircraft with 1,000 lb Mk-83 laser-guided bombs, but faced challenges with fuse reliability and laser designation systems. The induction of Rafael’s Litening pod provided a breakthrough, enabling infrared imaging, flexible software, and multi-aircraft compatibility.
Air Marshal Narmdeshwar Tiwari, then a Squadron Leader at ASTE, played a key role in this development. He said,"When war broke out in May 1999, Tiwi was dispatched to Gwalior to operationalise the pod. Under Air Commodore PS Ahluwalia, pods were standardised for combat use by 4 June."
By early June, Mirage-2000 squadrons were fully equipped and deployed for precision missions.
Tiwari added: "The Litening pod’s first operational success came on 16 June 1999, when it located the Pakistani logistics camp at Muntho Dhalo, hidden at the base of a cliff. Earlier intelligence underestimated its size, but the pod revealed its expansion. The following day, four Mirage-2000s struck the camp with 250 kg bombs, and a bomb damage assessment sortie confirmed heavy casualties and the crippling of Pakistani reinforcement capability in Batalik. This validated the pod’s utility for reconnaissance, target acquisition, and BDA, with similar tactics later used in Mushkoh Valley."
Its most decisive impact came at Tiger Hill.
On 24 June, Mirage-2000s using laser-guided bombs struck with precision after an earlier aborted attempt. The attack inflicted heavy casualties and enabled Indian ground forces to capture the peak.
The Indian Air Force entered the Kargil conflict on May 26 and faced early operational and tactical challenges. However, by June 4, it had adapted rapidly, integrating precision-guided munitions and advanced targeting systems to transform the battlefield.
By June 24, the same Tiger Hill identified before the war had been successfully struck with pinpoint accuracy—symbolically completing the arc from planning to execution and reinforcing the decisive role of air power in Operation Safed Sagar.
