A Salute Across Skies

An obituary for a fellow fallen air force pilot can't get better than this. And it becomes at its finest when the words come from none other than your "so called" arch enemy. This is professional respect and camaraderie beyond borders of hate at its best.

This piece on Wing Commander Namansh Syal is written by a retired Pakistan Air Force fighter pilot, Air Commodore Pervez Akhtar Khan.

Here's the tribute-

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𝘼 𝙎𝙖𝙡𝙪𝙩𝙚 𝘼𝙘𝙧𝙤𝙨𝙨 𝙎𝙠𝙞𝙚𝙨

The news of an Indian Air Force Tejas falling silent during an aerobatic display at the Dubai Air Show breaks something deeper than headlines can capture. Aerobatics are poetry written in vapor trails at the far edge of physics—where skill becomes prayer, courage becomes offering, and precision exists in margins thinner than breath. These are not performances for cameras; they are testimonies of human mastery, flown by souls who accept the unforgiving contract between gravity and grace in service of a flag they would die defending.

To the Indian Air Force, to the family now navigating an ocean of absence: I offer what words can never carry—condolence wrapped in understanding that only those who’ve worn wings can truly know. A pilot has not merely fallen. A guardian of impossible altitudes has been summoned home. Somewhere tonight, a uniform hangs unworn. Somewhere, a child asks when the father returns. Somewhere, the sky itself feels emptier.

But what wounds me beyond the crash, beyond the loss, is the poison of mockery seeping from voices on our side of a border that should never divide the brotherhood of those who fly. This is not patriotism—it is the bankruptcy of the soul. One may question doctrines, challenge strategies, even condemn policies with righteous fury—but never, not in a universe governed by honor, does one mock the courage of a warrior doing his duty in the cathedral of the sky. He flew not for applause but for love of country, just as our finest do. That demands reverence, not ridicule wrapped in nationalist pride gone rancid.

I too have watched brothers vanish into silence—Sherdil Leader Flt Lt Alamdar and Sqn Ldr Hasnat—men who lived at altitudes where angels hold their breath, men who understood that the sky demands everything and promises nothing. At the moment an aircraft goes quiet, there are no nationalities, no anthems, no flags. There is only the terrible democracy of loss, and families left clutching photographs of men who once touched clouds.

A true professional recognizes another professional across any divide. A true warrior—one worthy of the title—salutes courage even when it wears the wrong uniform, flies the wrong colors, speaks the wrong tongue. Anything less diminishes not them, but us. Our mockery stains our own wings, dishonors our own fallen, makes our claims hollow to valor.

Let me speak clearly: courage knows no passport. Sacrifice acknowledges no border. The pilot who pushes his machine to its screaming limits in service of national pride deserves honor—whether he flies under saffron, white and green, or under green and white alone.

May the departed aviator find eternal skies beyond all turbulence, where machines never fail and horizons stretch forever.

May his family discover strength in places language cannot reach, in the knowledge that their loss illuminates something sacred about human courage.

And may we—on both sides of lines drawn in sand and blood—find the maturity to honor what deserves honoring, to mourn what deserves mourning, and to remember that before we are citizens of nations, we are citizens of sky—all of us temporary, all of us mortal, all of us trying to touch something infinite before gravity reclaims us.

The sky grieves without borders. Let us do the same.

Courtesy: WhatsApp forward