Group Captain Abhinandan Varthaman has swapped fighter jets for turboprops. India’s best-known combat pilot has left the Indian Air Force and joined Fly91, a small regional carrier based in Goa, as a commercial pilot.
He walked out of the IAF on March 31 this year, ending a 22-year career that took him from the National Defence Academy to the cockpit of a MiG-21 Bison over the Line of Control. He joined Fly91 in August. Right now he’s in type training on the ATR 72-600, the twin-engine turboprop that makes up the airline’s entire six-aircraft fleet. Once the training and the regulatory clearances clear — and that’s still an “once,” not a “when” — he’s expected to start flying scheduled routes, including the Goa-Hyderabad sector.
Fly91 isn’t saying much. A spokesperson confirmed he’s with the airline and left it there, calling employee details a private matter. By most accounts, Varthaman himself would rather not talk about it either. That tracks: since 2019, he’s kept a notably low profile for someone that famous.
The Pilot Everyone Already Knows
You don’t need the backstory recapped in full — most of India could recite it. On February 27, 2019, a day after IAF Mirage 2000s struck a Jaish-e-Mohammed camp at Balakot, Pakistan sent fighters across the Line of Control in response. Then-Wing Commander Varthaman was scrambled out of Srinagar in a MiG-21 Bison to intercept them. His jet was hit — by an F-16, flown by a Pakistani Wing Commander named Noman Ali Khan — and he ejected into Pakistani-administered Kashmir, roughly 7 km from the LoC. He spent close to 60 hours in Pakistani custody before being handed back on March 1.
The footage from that handover is probably the most-watched clip involving an Indian military officer this century. It made him a household name overnight, moustache and all. Two years later, in 2021, he received the Vir Chakra, India’s third-highest wartime gallantry award — the citation pointed to his willingness to engage a numerically superior force. He was later promoted to Group Captain.
None of that is new. What’s new is what he’s doing with the years he has left as a pilot.
Why a Fighter Pilot Goes Regional
Military aviators moving into civil aviation isn’t unusual — it’s almost the default path for anyone who wants to keep flying after their service years run out. Fighter pilots especially. Once you hit a certain rank in the IAF, the flying slows down, and the desk work picks up: command postings, staff roles, administration. Civil aviation is one of the few ways to stay in the left seat.
What’s a little more interesting is the airline he picked. Varthaman could have gone to any number of full-service carriers. Instead, he’s flying ATRs for a two-year-old regional operator that most people outside Goa and Hyderabad have never heard of. Fly91 began commercial operations in March 2024, built specifically around underserved regional routes rather than the big metro corridors — the opposite end of Indian aviation from the fighter squadrons he came from. The airline has said it plans to keep growing that ATR fleet as it adds more regional connections, so a name like his on the roster doesn’t hurt.
What Happens Next
For now, this is a training story more than a flying one. Type-rating on the ATR 72-600 takes time, and Varthaman still needs the regulatory sign-offs that any pilot — famous or not — has to clear before touching the controls on a revenue flight. When he does, passengers on the Goa-Hyderabad route may find themselves on a flight captained by a man once held prisoner across enemy lines.
Fly91 hasn’t confirmed a start date for his commercial flying. Varthaman, characteristically, isn’t saying anything at all.
Sources
- India Today – Fighter pilot Abhinandan Varthaman, who downed Pak jet, retires from IAF, joins airline
- Wikipedia – Abhinandan Varthaman (background/biographical details)
- The Tribune – Abhinandan flies MiG-21 minus his ‘gunslinger’ moustache (background context, 2019)
