On September 19, 1965, when the second India Pakistan war (commonly known as the 1965 war) was on, a civilan aircraft – a ‘Beechcraft-18’, an eight seater passenger plane belonging to the Govt. of Gujarat, took off from Ahmedabad with a VIP passenger – the Chief Minister of Gujarat – Balwantrai Mehta. His co-passengers included his wife Mrs. Sarojben Mehta, three members of his personal staff, and one reporter from “The Gujarat Samachar” The crew consisted of the pilot Jehangir ‘Jangoo’ Engineer. Jangoo finished an illustrious career with the Indian Air Force and then with Indian Airlines, before being employed by the Govt. of Maharashtra as Chief Pilot. At the time of the incident he was on loan to the Gujarat Government. His co-pilot was D’Costa. (Jangoo’s family holds the unique distinction of sending four of its sons to the IAF. All of them became pilots. One rose to the rank of Chief of Air Staff, and another was the Air Officer Commanding, Western Command, during the 1971 war
Context In the 1971 India - Pakistan war, Pakistan's submarine - PNS (Pakistan Navy Ship) GHAZI, was destroyed and sunk off the coast of Vishakhapatnam (India's Naval Base on the East Coast facing the Bay of Bengal) sometime between December 3, 1971 (the day Pakistani Air Force fighter planes attacked major air bases in India, and started the war), and December 5, 1971. India claimed that Ghazi was destroyed and sunk in course of Naval operations, by INS Rajput (a guided missile destroyer of the Indian Navy). This Naval victory was widely publicized by the Indian Navy and the Government, as part of its war time propaganda to demoralize the enemy - Pakistan, and to raise the morale in India in general. However, with passage of time, the credibility of this claim waned, as various agencies - individuals who saw action in the Naval war, and war historians delved deep into the information available. To this day, it is not clear at all, as to how the GHAZI sank.