Army chopper crashes in Siachen

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An army chopper crashed on Monday morning in the Siachen glacier, with both the pilots sustaining minor injuries before being evacuated to Chandigarh for treatment.

The indigenously-built advanced light helicopter (ALH), Dhruv, crashed in the northern glacier at a height of around 20,000 feet around 8am, Srinagar-based defence public relations officer Naresh Vig said.

The crash was apparently due to whiteout conditions, in which snow and clouds change the way in which light is reflected and only dark objects are visible. The army has ordered an inquiry.

Army sources said one of the two pilots had fallen into a crevice in the glacier and was rescued. The other pilot suffered minor cuts.

The chopper had been pressed into service to drop food and other provisioned items for troops, sources said.

The army started deploying Dhruv choppers for its Siachen operations recently and is planning to use more of them.

via Hindustan Times.

Navy chopper crashes off Vizag coast; 2 crew injured, others missing

An Indian Navy chopper crashed off the Visakhapatnam harbour in Andhra Pradesh causing injuries to two persons on Tuesday. While two of the four crew members were rescued, two others were missing.

According to officials, the single-engine Chetak helicopter crashed in the Bay of Bengal about 10 km from the coast south of Vizag.

Officials said the aircraft – used for logistic support and surveillance – was on a routine sortie when it developed some technical problem.

The authorities were looking into the matter considering it to be an accidental crash. Coast Guard and Vizag Port Trust were searching for the two missing crew members.

Navy has pressed into service its helicopters and ships to search for the missing personnel, they said.

The Navy has ordered a Board of Inquiry to investigate the reasons behind the crash of the light utility chopper, they said.

The Cheetah and Chetak choppers are Indian license built versions of the French Arospatiale Alouette II and Arospatiale Alouette III and are the vintage of the 60s and the 70s. They are the mainstay of the armed forces for ferrying small groups of personnel and light loads.

The Navy has already initiated the process for acquiring 56 new light choppers with twin-engines for replacing the vintage choppers.

via India Today.

Another frontline fighter aircraft of IAF crashes

In a major embarrassment for the Air Force, one of its most advanced Su 30 MKI fighters crashed Tuesday evening at the Pokharan range in Rajasthan, days before a showcase exercise there that is to be witnessed by senior government dignitaries as well as the entire diplomatic corps to be flown in from New Delhi.

The aircraft, which was on a night flying training mission, crashed over the range around 7.20 pm. Both pilots managed to safely eject. There was no damage on the ground and a formal inquiry has been ordered into the incident.

While the Air Force is tight lipped on the cause of the crash, a technical defect on the fighter is believed to have led to the accident. The timing of the accident is specially embarrassing as the fighter had been practising for the upcoming Iron Fist exercise that is the showcase exercise of the Air Force.

In fact, a host of dignitaries and top officials are heading for Pokahran Friday for the fire power demonstration as part of the exercise, with President Pranab Mukherjee also likely to attend.

There is no word yet from the Air Force whether the Su 30 MKI fleet has been grounded after the accident. This is the fourth Su 30 MKI to crash. All the crashes have taken place over the past few years and have led to questions on the safety of the fleet.

The first crash was on April 30, 2009 in Rajasthan in which a pilot lost his life. It was attributed to a failure of the digital fly by wire systems. The second crash took place on November 30, 2009 when a newly inducted fighter went down over Rajasthan after it caught fire mid air. The reason for the crash was attributed to manufacturing faults. The third crash took place on December 13, 2011. It was attributed to a human fault during the servicing of the aircraft.

In the past, the fleet had been grounded for several days as precautionary checks were carried out by the Air Force to ascertain possible damage or technical defects on other aircraft.

via Indian Express.

IAF aircraft crashes, pilot alive

A MiG-27 aircraft of the Indian Air Force crashed within two minutes of taking off in Rajasthan’s Barmer district, but the pilot bailed out safely. The aircraft was on a routine training sortie when it crashed near Allawani Ki Dhani in the Western sector, defence spokesman S D Goswamy said.

The MiG-27 took off at 3.55 pm and crashed at 3.57 pm, he said adding the pilot ejected safely.

A Court of Inquiry had been ordered into the crash, the spokesman said.

via Hindustan Times.

BSF pilots ill-trained to fly copters: crash report

More than a year after a BSF chopper on anti-Naxal duty crashed near Khunti, Jharkhand, a probe by a panel of aviation experts has found that the pilots were not properly trained and their ‘knowledge of the helicopter systems was inadequate’.

The crash happened on October 19, 2011, and all the three persons on board, including the pilot, were killed.

The report is significant as the Dhruv fleet of the force was grounded by the then Home Minister P Chidambaram after two crashes in one year. The BSF had acquired seven ALH Dhruv helicopters, which play a crucial role in assisting the paramilitary and state police forces deployed in various anti-Naxal operations.

“The crew had limited experience and inadequate exposure to Instrument Flight Rules operations. They had also not undergone simulator training for instrument flying or handling of critical emergencies. The crew’s knowledge of the helicopter systems was inadequate,” the report submitted to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said.

The impact of the crash was such that one of the blades of the helicopter was found 1.2 km away. The chopper crashed after six minutes of take-off.

The report says that the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited as “manufacturer and maintenance contractor, did not take any action to rectify the fault”. It said the pilot took a steep turn and entered thick clouds due to which the crew got spatially disoriented.

The investigation was ordered in February and the report was submitted to the Ministry of Civil Aviation last week.

-via Indian Express.

IAF’s MiG-21 aircraft crashes in Gujarat

A MiG-21 Bison aircraft crashed near Naliya airbase in Kutch district of Gujarat on Saturday.

The IAF pilots have ejected safely, sources said. No casualties have been reported.

The incident took place about 100 km from Bhuj.

Ironically, this is not the first incident of IAF aircrafts crashing in State. The last incident that took place on August 30 claimed nine lives, including five officers. Two MI-17 choppers collided mid-air just after take-off from an air base in Jamnagar and turned into a fire ball.

The Russian-made choppers were on a training sortie and the crash occurred about five minutes after they took off at 12 noon from the Jamnagar air base, he said.

-via Niti Central.

Navy Chetak chopper crashes killing all aboard

In yet another air tragedy involving Indian choppers, a Chetak helicopter of the Indian Navy crashed at Dabolim Airport in Goa this morning.

According to reports, both the pilots and one diver on board were killed during the crash.

The chopper reportedly crashed during take off at the Dabolim airport.

The chopper was flying from Mumbai to Mangalore and had stopped at Goa for refuelling.

Reports also said after the crash all operations at the airport have been temporarily suspended.

Earlier in August, two MI-17 helicopters of the Indian Air Force had collided in mid-air in Gujarat’s Saurashtra region killing all nine IAF personnel aboard.

The collision occurred over Sarmat village, when the personnel were on a routine training mission. Each of the helicopters, which took off from the nearby Jamnagar airbase, carried a pilot, a co-pilot and two other trainees.

-via Firstpost.

9 killed as two MI-17 Air Force choppers collide in Gujarat

Mahesh Langa.

Nine personnel of the Indian Air Force (IAF) died and one was injured when two MI-17 choppers of the Force collided mid air near Air Force Base in Jamnagar, Gujarat. The incident occurred outside the civilian area near Sarmat village, 16 km from Jamnagar city on Khambhalia highway.

Group Capt MG Mehta confirmed that a total of nine persons died in the accident, defense PRO in said in Ahmedabad. He said the incident happened around 12:30pm.

Those killed included four pilots and co-pilots and air warriors of the Air Force.

Sources said that a chopper touched the electric wires while flying and that might have resulted into fire.

The choppers that collided were MI-17 of the Indian Air Force which were on training exercise. Nine were on board two choppers, which collided mid air and then crashed.

Police and air force reached the crash site located in an open farm near Sarmat village as soon as was possible.

“We have reports that some persons have died in the accident. The entire area has now been cordoned off by the police, air force and civilian administration,” Jamnagar district collector Sandeep Kumar told HT.

He refused to divulge more details saying the matter pertains to the Indian Air Force which can provide other details.

Indian Air force has a major base in Jamnagar, which is located in the Western coast.

-via Hindustan Times.

Siachen: Copter crash kills Army officer

An Indian Army officer was killed and another was injured when the helicopter they were travelling in crashed on the Siachen Glacier on Wednesday.

According to reports, the accident occurred at around 11:45 am on Wednesday during a regular routine maintenance sortie.

The Cheetah Helicopter crashed minutes after it took off after unloading the supplies at Northern Glacier’s Bheem post, an Army official said.

The injured pilot was rushed to an army military hospital for treatment.

-via India Blooms.

Helicopter’s can crash on homes, but who cares!

The crash-landing of HAL Rotary Wing Academy’s Schweizer-300C helicopter atop a residential building near BEML Kalyana Mantapa in GM Palya on Thursday afternoon is the first frightening experience in Bangalore due to allowing training flights so close to residential areas. Although no explosion occurred when the helicopter’s rotors hit a concrete water tank on the terrace, the incident is an eye-opener for the civil and military aviation community about possible catastrophic effects of conducting training flights so close to residential areas.

DNA found that at least nine major densely populated localities of Koramangala, Wilson Gardens, Basavanagudi, Banashankari, Visveswarapuram, Bytarayanapura, Shankarapuram, Vijayanagar and Kempegowdanagar are located right under the flight path of aircraft taking off or landing at the HAL airport. Although commercial flight operations shifted to Bengaluru International Airport in Devanahalli in May 2008, HAL Airport continues to be home for military test flights conducted by the National Flight Test Centre (NFTC) and the Aircraft Systems and Training Establishment (ASTE).

And this is where the problem lies. NFTC conducts regular test flights on the Light Combat Aircraft, Tejas, from this airstrip, and ASTE conducts test flights on upgraded military aircraft like Jaguars, Mirage and MiGs — all of which fly over these densely populated residential areas.

The problem exists not only near HAL Airport, but even near Air Force Station Yelahanka (AFSY). In the training flight radius lie several schools and residential layouts such as Yelahanka New Town.

Since 1990, there have been eight air disasters involving aircraft and helicopters taking off from or landing at HAL airport or its vicinity. But it is a miracle that an aircraft has not landed on apartments, houses or office building in the airport’s vicinity – until Thursday. “There is always a degree of uncertainty when test flights are flown,” said an aviation expert. A former director of the Light Combat Aircraft programme said, “What can be done if areas surrounding the airfield were allowed to have residential areas?” According to Pete Field, former director, US Naval Test Pilot School: “It is important for authorities to zone approach and landing corridors of established airports so that land-use underneath the (flight) corridors disallows construction of residential buildings. Also, the local community should voice objections to the Bangalore authorities to see if there are flight approach corridors that offer less risk to the citizenry.”

-via DNA.