ISLAMABAD: In 1971, Pilot Officer Rashid Minhas was just 20 years old and had been commissioned for less than five months when he was compelled to crash a training jet to prevent it from reaching India.
The act, which killed him, stopped a fellow officer from taking the aircraft across the border, according to the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP).
Minhas was born on February 17, 1951, in Karachi. He joined the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) Academy in Risalpur as a flying cadet at 17 and was commissioned as a General Duty Pilot on March 13, 1971, as part of the 51st GD(P) course, according to APP.
He was posted to No 2 Squadron at PAF Base Masroor in Karachi for fighter conversion training.
On the morning of August 20, 1971, as Minhas prepared for what APP describes as his second solo flight in a Lockheed T-33 jet trainer, Flight Lieutenant Matiur Rahman, an instructor, boarded the rear seat of the aircraft.
Rahman then overpowered Minhas, took the controls and turned the aircraft toward India, according to APP. Minhas radioed PAF Base Masroor to report the aircraft was being commandeered, then fought to regain the controls as the jet closed on the border.
With roughly 40 miles of Pakistani airspace left, and unable to physically dislodge Rahman from the rear seat, Minhas put the aircraft into a dive.
The aircraft crashed at Goth Ahmed Shah in Sujawal district, about 52 kilometers short of the border, according to Radio Pakistan.
The Karachi native was buried with military honors in his hometown on August 21, 1971.
The government awarded him Pakistan's highest military award, Nishan-e-Haider, posthumously, crediting him with preventing the aircraft's hijacking by choosing to destroy it rather than allow it to cross into India.
He remains the only PAF recipient of the award, and its youngest recipient overall.
Legacy
PAF Base Kamra was renamed PAF Base Minhas in his honor, according to APP. Rashid Minhas Road, a major Karachi thoroughfare, also bears his name, and Pakistan Post issued a commemorative stamp featuring his portrait in December 2003.
PAF contingents lay wreaths at his grave each year on Sept 7, Pakistan Air Force Day, and on the anniversary of his death. His case is taught at the Pakistan Air Force Academy as an example of the service's doctrine on individual initiative in a crisis.