I have been out of the PAF for a few years now- and in some respects have as much access to sources now as some civvie aviation fanatics- but still do retain contacts which give me the inside scoop sometimes. Here's my unbiased opinion on what happened in this incident. First some disclaimers- the IAF NEVER gave Chibber a big gallantry award- this was a routine award for a job well done- like an Air Medal in the USAF- not an award in the league of a Medal of Honor or DFC! Secondly, in this particular occasion, the PAF was bested- there, I said it- there's no shame in it- there have been many occasions in the past conflicts of 1965 and 1971 when it was the other way around- any professional pilot will tell you that success and failure are two sides of the same coin- anyone who claims to be invincible is lying or an adolescent amatuer masquerading as a professional. To lay this story to rest- and though the PAF is understandably not keen to trumpet it around town- those in the know know- lets keep it at that, so I'm not exactly revealing any state secrets.
The PAF in Kargil was NEVER tasked to aggressively counter the IAF (forget the crap about them being scared)- it was very much an Army (read Musharraf) show- with even the civilian leadership in the dark about some aspects. Our friendly neighborhood tinpot dictator (Musharraf) then looked for scrapegoats- so he got rid of Nawaz and then turned on the PAF for not doing its job (bullshit!!!) by firing much of its top brass recently. Forgive me for digressing, but as someone who dedicated his life to the service of Pakistan, I hate to see it falling back into dictatorship. But the key message is- the PAF was never under orders to engage the IAF, unless they crossed the LOC. On this occasion, I gather the Indian MiG-27s did cross the LOC briefly and the local NLI commander who was having the crap bombed out of him called in desparately for support- the PAF, which had been frustrated at having to sit it out till now, saw an opportunity to bloody the IAF nose as they were reported to have crossed the LOC. Two Falcons on alert were vectored into the MiGs, but received the jolt of their lives when an IAF MiG-29 locked onto BOTH of them. They tried to break lock- but the MiG persisted, and while I do agree they could have pressed home- there were some controlling factors:
1) strict orders not to cross the LOC
2) Hell, they thought they were about to get a salvo of R-27s up their noses...as an aside, one of the Falcon pilots was a greenhorn and was pretty shaken by this experience- got razzed to death for weeks afterwards.
What would have happened if the Falcons had pressed home- who knows???? The MiG had a definite BVR edge and in close combat with the R-73/HMS, all bets are off. Plus, if the Falcons did cross the LOC, they would have been fair game to any other MiG-29s lurking about as they would no longer be over friendly terriotory- sometimes discretion is the better part of valour, n'est c'est pas?