Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Thursday felicitated fishermen who were instrumental in saving the pilot of a Dornier surveillance aircraft that crashed in the Arabian sea in March.
The aircraft of the Indian Navy with three personnel aboard crashed into the Arabian Sea off the coast of Goa on March 24.
Commander Nikhil Joshi, the pilot of the aircraft and the lone survivor, was picked up by a passing fishing boat from a fishing hamlet off Karwar and transferred to a naval Fast Interceptor Craft.
"The lone survivor of the unfortunate accident is alive today because of the alacrity and the timely help extended by the fishermen community that night," an official statement said.
The bodies of Lt. Abhinav Nagori, the co-pilot and Lt. Kiran Shekhawat, the flight observer, were later located inside the submerged fuselage of the aircraft.