As spectators cheered, fighter jets of the Indian Air Force Saturday performed aerobatics over the newly built Purvanchal Expressway, district officials here said. Around 300 people attended the air show which commenced around 11 am and lasted for two hours.
Sukhoi and Mirage fighter jets made a ‘touch and go" on the three-and-a-half-kilometre airstrip at Arwal Kiri Karwat in the Kurebhar area here on the expressway, the officials said. In view of the programme, a 12 km stretch of the expressway was closed and a traffic diversion was put in place by the authorities.
District Magistrate Jasjit Kaur, Superintendent of Police Somen Barma, Jaisinghpur MLA Raj Babu Upadhyay, along with several army officials, were present at the event. Villagers from more than two dozen nearby villages came to watch the air show, the officials said.
The team of Air Force officials was alerted when a dog ran into the airstrip and police personnel were deployed to stop canines from reaching the airstrip. The 341-km long Purvanchal Expressway from Lucknow to Ghazipur, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 16, 2021, passes through nine districts of the state. During the inauguration, Modi himself landed on the airstrip in a Hercules aircraft of the Air Force.