The mortal remains of lieutenant S Achudev, who was killed in the Sukhoi-30 jet crash in the Assam-Arunachal border, was flown to his native place of Thiruvananthapuram on Friday morning.
The mortal remains were received by the IAF personnel at the Thiruvananthapuram airport and were then taken to his residence at Gouri Nagar in Pongumudu. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan paid respects to the IAF pilot on Friday afternoon.
The body will be taken to the Pangode military station around 5 pm, reports Manorama Online. Wing commander Mathews will head the arrangements for the public homage at the military station.
The remains will be taken to Achudev's ancestral home in Kozhikode on Saturday, where the funeral will be held with full military honours.
Twenty-one officials from the Air Force station at Sulur in Coimbatore will be present at the funeral.
The 26-year-old’s last communication with his family was on May 22 when his father Sahadevan called him over the phone to wish him on his birthday. Achudev’s parents who had gone to Assam on hearing the jet crash news returned on Thursday evening.
Achudev along with Squadron leader Pankaj were declared dead by the Indian Air Force on Thursday.
Fighter jet Sukhoi Su-30 had taken off from the Tezpur air base on May 23. It lost radar and radio contact with the controlling station near Arunachal Pradesh's Doulasang area. The aircraft crashed on the Assam-Aruchanal border, 60 km away from Tezpur, on May 23. The wreckage of the aircraft was found on May 26 in a thick forest, while the bodies were recovered on May 31.
"Analysis of the flight data recorder (black box) of the aircraft and certain other articles recovered from the crash revealed that the pilots could not initiate ejection before the crash,” IAF spokesperson Anupam Banerjee said