Bharat Rakshak

Good to hear Pilots are safe, I hope they are without injuries, as ejection injuries can be very serious.

ON anther note I think these crashes might mean some more Rafales ordered.

Another IAF Mirage-2000 Crashed in Rajasthan, Pilot Safe

More info.

Thanks God Pilot(s) are safe.
Chacko ji you are saying it was a single seater. On twitter feed Shiv has given names of two pilots who ejected safely

We've been lucky the engines have cut-out in what looks like level flight at a safe altitude. Things could have been a lot worse if it happened during low-level flying or air combat exercises.

The pilots have had time to plan the ejection, that in itself reduces the risk of serious injury by a large extent. Still, it is always risky to light a rocket under your butt!

Didn't take too long ... "Mirage dubbed the new coffins"
http://chhindits.blogspot.in/2012/03/mi ... ffins.html

For once, Dassault will be desperate to do whatever it can to ensure no further crashes. Otherwise at this rate the M2K upgrade order will be getting steadily smaller.

it is twin seat. I did the story when it was evolving. I have updated it.

^^ these birds never had an issue and out of the blue they start falling due to engine problems?

And DDM started calling them flying coffin.. wow?

[OT] Spy cells in my brain tells me that before the MMRCA deal is signed people will do anything to prove that French are not worth it.

Sincerely hope.....Hotel Alpha Lima's hand in servicing these birds is not the issue.....

guys, cut out the stupid speculation already !

aircrafts malfunction and when they do they crash. fighters crash more often than civilian aircraft and old fighters crash even more. if there's a problem with HAL/IAF/[insert speculation here] it would be discovered in the CoI.

and no, this isn't the first time mirages have crashed. they had a similar spate of crashes in mid 2000's, at least one of which was due to engine malfunction. I remember a pilot named gururani died in one crash. he was the son of a retd AM. but the fact remains that we have operated the M2k for over 2 decades with a rather good safety record. kindly hold your horses before blaming all and sundry.

don't post anything just because you can.

Amazing! Two quick crashes was all it took. Despite the fact that no pilots were killed.

Sqd Ldr Gururani crashed due to spatial disorientation during a night sortie, not due to engine trouble.

Now that the IAF has lost 2 Mirage-2000THs (I hope these aren't from the batch of 6 THs that were delivered to the IAF from 2003 onwards), the training of pilots on the remaining twin seaters will become even more tight and availability will definitely be affected. Perhaps the new simulators for the Mirages will help reduce some burden on the twin seaters for training, but I still do hope that whenever UAE's deal with France for the Rafales comes through, maybe India could purchase a few of their twin seaters for conversion and concurrency training.

Either that, or the IAF could buy a few of the AdlA Mirage-2000Ds primarily for replacing the twin seaters that have been lost. The older Mirage-2000Bs may have very little life left since they're due to retire in 2014.

I didn't say gururani crashed due to engine trouble. there were 2 other crashes in at least one of which turbine blade came off. the other was due to engine trouble too IIRC but not sure.

Here are a few articles that have been posted on BR and BRf that should give you background information on answers to the questions you have asked above

Flight Safety - The Indian environment - from Vayu 2004

I mourn For Kathigeyan - by brfite Abhibhushan
Here is another story from Abhibhushan
Breaking an Aircraft


A tale of two hydraulics systems

MiG 21 much maligned


Below is a link to an online Magazine deals with IAF safety issues
http://indianairforce.nic.in/show_page.php?pg_id=265

Taken from the above link, red the article entitled "I was Lucky Enough"
http://indianairforce.nic.in/fsmagazines/Jan12.pdf


Below is the detailed 75 page report on the crash of the test aircraft Saras
http://dgca.nic.in/accident/reports/VT-XRM.pdf


The article below is not so much about flight safety but about whether the IAF really cares or not about accidents
Kempy's Nose

damn

Another one?


Damn it is quite embarrasing we loose so many of our frontline fighters to crashes.

Embarrassing? Of all the emotions to have?

question to gurus..... what is the safe altitude and speed for ejection...
i heard that many times eventough pilot survived the crash he may not be in a position for retaining his flying status.....

Let me take a stab at it. Most modern fighters' ejection seats have a zero-zero rating i.e. they can eject at 0 speed and 0 altitude. Theoretically its 0-0.

During an ejection sequence, forces acting on body are extreme. I am sure pilots go through a lot of training to maintain an erect/straight upper body posture during ejection sequence. If they fail to maintain that posture for some reason, chances are they might have suffered some kind of spinal injury which would make them flight unworthy. Hope that gives some answer to your second question.

May be doc can provide more accurate answers.

OT: Herr Doktor, the embarrassment is probably mostly about not being able to spell "losing".
I'm sure there is a lot of pain over the near tragedy and a lot of sympathy for the pilots who will probably take months to recover.

Is it not rather surprising that we have two mirage crashes just after the Rafale deal? I smell sabotage by vested interests.

There is no such thing as absolute safe speed and altitude as far as I know. Zero-Zero seats work at zero altitude zero speed. Ejection at supersonic speed is dangerous, but people have survived. A plane that is very close to the ground and rapidly going downwards is bad for ejection, worse if it is upside down, obviously.

As long as ejection leaves the pilot far enough above the ground for the chute to billow and the fall to decelerate the descent will be OK. But the act of ejection (exceeds 25 G for a few microseconds) invariably causes some damage to the spine. The amount of damage can vary. Microfractures (mild backache needing weeks of rest) are common. More severe damage can take a pilot off flying.

LOL

Embarrassment comes from visiting too many Paki fora and seeing them laughing. The way to avoid that is
1. Hide your crashes, like the Chinese
2. Stop looking at Pakis for approval, respect and admiration, which is what many Indians seem to want

Shiv gaaru, at zero speed and zero altitude, how far up does the ejection seat go before the parachute opens? The video of an F-18 landing on an aircraft carrier and snapping the arresting wire shows a zero-zero ejection, I think (almost, as the speed wasn't very much). It doesn't seem to go very far up, though.

@Zynda is right.

Ejection posture is part of training. It helps minimize the impact of the upward force. Also it helps that your body and mind are prepared for the ejection when the ejection is planned.

Spinal injury apart, the next most common injuries are when the limbs flail and come in contact with the cockpit sides when ejecting or impact of canopy or canopy debris. Some ejection seats have a shroud you pull over your head and restraints for hands and legs. And finally you can injure yourself pretty badly if your parachute landing gets botched!

An F-18 that is descending on to a deck already has a downward velocity, and that downward velocity will reduce the upward acceleration of the ejection seat (like throwing a rock backwards at 50 kmph from a bus moving forwards at 25 kmph) unless the ejection takes place after the plane hits the deck. Then if the plane goes off the edge - once again it is accelerating downwards by an amount that will counteract some of the upward acceleration of the ejection. So unless the plane is flat on the deck it will not be a zero downward velocity or acceleration and the height the seat reaches will not be as much as when the plane is flat or climbing which is like throwing a rock forwards from a bus moving forward.

One couldn't have put it better. Spot on here Shivji. I'm embarrassed to see so many Indians posting on a Pakistani defence forum..no doubt the second point you made explains that.

Just to add ... there are so many more variables. As a sky-diver I know so many complications with parachutes ... It is not just that you would suddenly slowdown to survivable speeds the moment the parachute deploys ... the deployment of the parachute itself and the deceleration itself depend on so many things and orientations. I am pretty sure ejecting from a standstill plane is very very dangerous ... it might save you, but you might get seriously hurt. when it comes to parachutes ... the keyword is height!

Red Arrow incident comes to mind.. here even the parachute failed to open after ejecting from a stationary Hawk

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... ident.html

Does anyone recollect a couple of such incidents in the USN in 1960s ? There were two accidents with USN F 8 Crusaders. The pilots ejected form about 30 - 35000+ feet. In one case the parachute did not open. I think both the pilots survived. I had read about these incidents in Reader's Digest, a few decades ago.

K

oh dear. not this bilge again.

^^ Sometimes facts are not far from fiction.

But everyone are still waiting for crash investigation to complete.

Sounds like a bilge eh , just think that the probability does not add up

Check out this India today story on Mirage crash

^ saar HAl does not assemble Mirage. IIRC They do have the only facility outside France to overhaul Mirages

Rupesh ji, my bad! India Today reported and I believed.

I hate to post this but another Mirage 2000 fighter has crashed. The pilots are reported to have ejected safely.

Why are Mirage 2000s falling from the sky?

I think the fact that they are maintained by HAL have little to do with the quality of HAL. They have been functioning well for many years, 3 crashes, damn, time to phase of this fleet out as well it seems, why engage in an expensive upgrade, just order a 3 squadrons of F-35s to replace the mirage fleet. I think a bad batch of spares coming from France must have tainted these birds.

Eitherway a full scale upgrade of this fleet is not needed, just a LUSH touch up is enough. Mirage is turning out to be a shitty bird as well it seems.

I fear the same will happen with the Raffy fleet, already so may unexpalined crashes in the raffy fleet, i think scrap raffy deal and go for a the safest bird in the MRCA F-18IN. Not a single crash due to technical failure.

^^ 3 crashes in 3 months is definitely really, really scary ( esp when there are only 50 of these around)!!

Wasn't there a CoI ordered? What was the finding of that inquiry?

Page not found ... I don't think there is any crash. So lets wait until it is covered by other papers before creating BRF panic.