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TEZPUR, 8 Apr:<\/strong> President Droupadi Murmu on Saturday took her maiden sortie in a fighter aircraft at Tezpur air base in Assam.<\/p>\n Group Captain Naveen Kumar Tiwari flew her in a Sukhoi-30 MKI that took off from the Indian Air Force base.<\/p>\n “Achcha laga (felt good),” Murmu told reporters after completing her 25-minute sortie.<\/p>\n Murmu, who was on a three-day trip to Assam, reached Tezpur from Guwahati. She was received at the air base by Air Marshal S P Dharkar, Governor Gulab Chand Kataria and Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.<\/p>\n After landing at Tezpur, Murmu received a guard of honour by IAF personnel, followed by an official briefing on her flight aboard the Sukhoi aircraft.<\/p>\n She then reached the hangar wearing the flying suit, and waved to the waiting journalists before climbing the ladder to board the aircraft.<\/p>\n The president also posed with her pilot and other officials in front of the aircraft.<\/p>\n After sitting in the cockpit, a woman officer helped her put on the helmet and complete other technicalities. She waved from the cockpit just seconds before the aircraft canopy was shut.<\/p>\n Alighting from the aircraft after the 25-minute sortie, she<\/p>\n again posed with the group captain and waved to the waiting journalists.<\/p>\n Though no media interaction was scheduled with the president, she said “achcha laga” (felt good) when a waiting journalist asked her how the sortie was.<\/p>\n Murmu is the third president after APJ Abdul Kalam and Pratibha Patil to take a sortie in a fighter aircraft. Her predecessors, however, had taken their rides from Pune air base.<\/p>\n Wrapping up her Assam tour, Murmu left Tezpur around 12.30 pm. (PTI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" TEZPUR, 8 Apr: President Droupadi Murmu on Saturday took her maiden sortie in a fighter aircraft at Tezpur air base in Assam. Group Captain Naveen Kumar Tiwari flew her in a Sukhoi-30 MKI that took off from the Indian Air Force base. “Achcha laga (felt good),” Murmu told reporters after completing her 25-minute sortie. Murmu, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-214586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}