8-Pass Charlie

Najeeb Ahmad Khan, commonly known as 8-Pass Charlie, was a Pakistani bomber pilot who raided the Adampur Airbase in India a number of times during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, notably starting a series of airstrikes on the base by a solo raid.

He was named "8-Pass Charlie" by his impressed Indian adversaries at the Adampur base as he used to make eight passes, one for each bomb, on selected targets with improving efficiency instead of safely dropping all of his bomb load and exiting. He is also known to have had expertise in disguising his attack run by confusing anti-aircraft gunners by cutting throttles before entering a dive. In 1974, he attended Joint Warfare Courses at the UK and also graduated from PAF Staff College. As his last deployment, Najeeb was appointed as Pakistan's Air Attaché in France until finally retiring from the PAF on 20 June 1981. The B-57 bombers would arrive over their targets in a stream at intervals of about 15 minutes, which led to achieving a major disruption of the overall IAF effort.

1971 War

During the 1971 war, Najib served as the PSO of the PAF's Commander-in-chief, Air Marshal Abdul Rahim Khan. and appears to be derived from his daring routine of making eight passes in bombing runs during every air raid over the alerted airbase to bomb selected targets with each 500 lb bomb in the moonlight, "and tried to carry out an effective attack each time", instead of dropping his entire bomb-load of 4,000 lbs during the first pass which would have allowed a safer exit for the aggressor aircraft over initial defences.

Personal life Najeeb married Surraya on 14 October 1964 in London. The couple has a son named Babar (b. 1971). Soon after retiring from the PAF, he took residence in Canada and continues to live there with his family. Najeeb's younger brother, Air Chief Marshal Jamal Ahmed Khan, later went on to command the Pakistan Air Force. Both of them are the only brothers to be awarded the Sitara-e-Jurat.