On the 8th May, 1980, Flight Lieutenant Sumit Mukerji was flying an instructional Instrument Flying sorties. At a height of 4900 metres, he experienced a front bearing failure and shortly engine seizure took place. Till then, no reliable statistics were available on the rate of descent of aircraft experienced with seized engine and different configuration of aircraft using undercarriage and flaps. With a totally professional approach, unmindful of great danger to his own life, Flight Lieutenant Mukerji passed on to the flying control the various rates of descent he experienced with and without undercarriage. Despite a very high rate of descent, he through his fine airmanship managed to land the aircraft and thereby saved a valuable aircraft from certain destruction. He also helped in collecting valuable data on the situations that follow an engine seizure.

In this action, Flight Lieutenant Sumit Mukerji displayed courage, presence of mind and professional skill of a high order.

On the 8th Sept. 1984, Flight Cadet Mohinder Jeet Singh Bains, who was undergoing Advance stage training at an Air Force Training Institution, was authorised to fly a Low Level Navigation sortie with a chase pilot. Just after take off, he experienced an engine flame-out. Facing the most critical emergency in a single engine jet aircraft. Flt Cdt Mohinder Jeet Singh Bains, inspite of his very limited experience as a trainee pilot, was calm. He turned the stricken aircraft away from heavily populated areas to head for a lake in order to avoid loss of lives on the ground and damage to civilians property. Thereafter, following the drills he had been taught, he jettisoned the canopy and put the aircraft smoothly down, wheels up, on the edge of the lake. The aircraft skimmed along the water and slowed down about three hundred meters into the lake, then nosed into settle wings level on the bottom, twenty feet down. Underwater, Flt Cdt Bains unstrapped himself from his seat and his parachute, disconnected his oxygen tube and came out of the cockpit. But immediately he got entangled in the weeds in the lake. Though weighed down by his boots and overalls, he made a tremendous effort and almost reached the surface but the weeds pulled him down. He attempted to remove his boots and by the time he unlaced one, he had suffocated and drowned.

Flight Cadet Mohinder Jeet Singh Bains thus displayed cool courage, presence of mind and a high sense of responsibility.