India says landed heavy-lift military aircraft at highest altitude

NEW DELHI: The Indian Air Force said on Saturday it had successfully landed a heavy-lift transport aircraft at the highest altitude anywhere in the world in remote Ladakh bordering China.

The IL-76MD, a four-engine Russian-origin turbofan military aircraft also known as Ganjraj, landed at an airfield at 4,154 metres (13,629 feet) above sea level close to the frontier with China.

“An Indian Air Force IL-76MD has scripted history with a successful landing at Nyoma, marking the highest-altitude landing ever achieved by the aircraft anywhere in the world,” the IAF said in a statement.

It described the landing as a “milestone that reinforces India’s strategic airlift capability”, and said it was “a new height in aviation history”.

Images posted by the IAF on social media showed the aircraft landing and taking off from the runway surrounded by barren mountains in the cold desert area, where temperatures can plummet to minus 20C.

The military airfield at Nyoma was completed last year as part of a push for military infrastructure in the icy region following a border clash in 2020 that killed 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers.

India and China compete fiercely for influence in South Asia. Relations have improved slowly since that clash, with renewed political contacts at the highest levels.

However, deep distrust remains and both sides maintain military deployments along their roughly 3,500-kilometre (2,175-mile) high-altitude border along Tibet owing to unresolved territorial disputes.

Landing the Gajraj aircraft, which can carry heavy military equipment, at Nyoma could boost India’s rapid deployment and strategic capabilities in high-altitude terrain.