Rashid Minhas

Rashid Minhas was the only PAF officer to receive the highest valor award, the Nishan-e-Haider. He was also the youngest person and the shortest-serving officer to have received this award. He is remembered for his death in 1971 in a jet trainer crash while struggling to regain the controls from a defecting pilot: Flight Lieutenant Matiur Rahman. During the routine training mission in August of 1971, P/Off. Minhas attempted to gain control of his jet trainer when his commanding officer Flight Lieutenant Matiur Rahman was trying to defect to India, and deliberately commandeer his plane that crashed near the Thatta District, Sindh in Pakistan.