New Delhi: The tragic accident of an Armed Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) named Rudra in Arunachal Pradesh on Friday, in which at least four people were killed, has once again focused attention on the series of accidents involving the indigenous helicopter, which is the backbone . Indian Army.
Army has constituted a Court of Inquiry into the accident Happened At around 10:43 am on Friday, at least four of the five personnel on board were killed near Tuting area in Arunachal Pradesh’s Upper Siang district.
In a statement issued on Saturday, the Army said the weather was good and both the pilots had over 600 combined flight hours over Rudra and over 1,800 flight hours between them.
It said that “prior to the accident, Air Traffic Control (ATC) had received a May Day call suggesting a technical or mechanical failure” which was incorporated in 2015.
The army said that this will become the focus of the Court of Inquiry.
The accident brings to mind the fatal accident of an ALH Dhruv in 2019, in which Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, who was then the Northern Army Commander, killed a miraculous escape The helicopter carrying him and seven others crashed in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch region.
Although the Court of Inquiry’s findings in that accident are not public, sources in the defense establishment said the accident occurred after the “mass”, which controls the power of the rotors and backs, broke down.
Sources said, it was a manufacturing defect.
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Army, Air Force operates around 90 Rudra
The advanced helicopter, indigenously designed and developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), is “a twin-engine, multi-role, multi-mission new generation helicopter in the 5.5-tonne weight class” and is seen as the workhorse of the Army. Is. ,
Inducted in 2002, over 400 helicopters – the latest version of which is the Mk-III – have been built by HAL, including its weaponized variant known as the ALH Rudra.
According to HAL, as of January this year, more than 335 poles have been produced, logging approximately 3,40,000 cumulative flight hours. The Army and the IAF together operate around 90 Rudras, which were inducted in 2013.
However, it has suffered at least 23 Dhruv/Rudra accidents, which have claimed the lives of many personnel, besides scores of emergency landings.
What is worrying is that all the accidents have happened in peace time and not in any real war scenario.
When asked about the Arunachal accident, Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur (Retd) said that the May Day call and the statement issued by the Army indicate that “something disastrous has happened to the helicopter”.
“Earlier there have been few cases where ALH Dhruv has crashed. It is imperative that HAL and Services Headquarters take a holistic approach to remove any technical/manufacturing discrepancies that may occur,” he said.
16 pole accidents since 2002
While sources in the defense establishment agreed that there are several servicing challenges for the helicopter, they termed the ALH as “reliable”.
In 2016, the government stated that there had been sixteen accidents with the Dhruv since 2002. Two of the accidents were of a civilian type and five occurred in Ecuador, seven of which were procured.
The then Minister of State for Defense Rao Inderjit Singh said in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha He “Of the 16 accidents, 12 were caused by human error and environmental factors and the remaining four were due to technical reasons”.
Government in December last year Told Since March 2017, there have been 15 military helicopter crashes, including four Dhruv and two Rudra.
The helicopter has seen several emergency landings including a . also includes Last year With two 3-star officers in Kheda district of Gujarat.
The certification of the utility military variant Dhruv was completed in 2002 and the civil variant in 2004.
Based on ALH Dhruv, state-owned aerospace major HAL has now come up with Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) and Light Combat Helicopter (LCH).
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