Fighter and transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) on Tuesday performed breathtaking touch-and-go landings on a stretch of the Lucknow-Agra Expressway, showing that highways can be used as landing strips in case of any emergency.

Over a dozen IAF planes, including Mirage-2000 fighters and Sukhoi 30s, besides 35,000 kg C-130J Super Hercules aircraft, took part in the exercise near Bangarmau in the district, about 65 km from Lucknow.

#WATCH The first of 16 Indian Air Force planes lands on Lucknow-Agra expressway near Unnao pic.twitter.com/cx0GYkaonk October 24, 2017

#WATCH Indian Air Force aircraft on Lucknow-Agra expressway during IAF landing exercise pic.twitter.com/5hF9liTBcH — ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) October 24, 2017

Garud Special Forces commandos secured the landing zone as part of the special drill.

The top-of-the-line Sukhoi 30s and Mirage 2000s took off after touching down on the expressway, while the C-130J transport aircraft landed on it.

In a first for India, a Mirage 2000 multi-role combat jet of the Indian Air Force (IAF) test-landed on the Yamuna Expressway in May 2015. In November 2016, six fighter jets of the IAF touched down on the newly-built Agra-Lucknow Expressway.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has cleared 12 national highways (NHs) as emergency landing airstrips that will enable rescue operation teams to reach affected areas easily, an official responsible for executing the project said.

Although there was initially a proposal to develop a total of 21 NHs into airstrips, for now 12 highways have been cleared, with three of those connecting Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh — all Maoist-affected areas — which witness vagaries of nature like floods and cyclones almost every year.