Military Flight Safety

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Dilbu
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Dilbu »

Army Flags Clear Weather, SOS In Arunachal Chopper Crash That Killed 5
Guwahati: All Army personnel in the helicopter that crashed in Arunachal Pradesh's Upper Siang district on Friday are dead, sources confirmed after the fifth body was reportedly located today. The Air Traffic Control (ATC) had received a 'may day' call right before the crash, suggesting a technical or mechanical failure, the Army said, adding that the weather was clear, and the pilots were experienced. However, the terrain is "extremely challenging" in terms of hills with steep gradients and thick jungle, the army said in a statement.
"The pilots had more than 600 combined flying hours on ALH-WSI and over 1800 service flying hours between them. The aircraft was inducted into service in June 2015," it said.

A court of enquiry has been set up to probe the crash.
arvin
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by arvin »

https://www.timesnownews.com/india/su-3 ... e-97392993

Reports saying of 2 aircrafts crash. Hope the pilots are safe.
Crash site is near Morena, MP.
Zynda
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Zynda »

So sad to read the above...just breaks my heart. IAF is saying it is investigating chances of a mid-air collision. Apparently Su-30 & M2K were involved in exercises...
stephen
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by stephen »

arvin wrote: https://www.timesnownews.com/india/su-3 ... e-97392993

Reports saying of 2 aircrafts crash. Hope the pilots are safe.
Crash site is near Morena, MP.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ind ... 392771.cms

Reports mention a SU30MKI and a Mirage2000, Two pilots are safe and search is on for the 3rd pilot. Hope the pilot is found safe and sound. Two planes lost together in the same area is quite unprecedented.
mody
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by mody »

Two aircrafts, 1 Su-30MKI and 1 Mirage 2K crash in Madhya Pradesh. All pilots safe. Happened during an exercise. Could have been a mid air collision of some sort, however, further details are awaited. Sad news. All pilots are safe, but two frontline fighters lost.

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/india ... 53201.html
Manish_P
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Manish_P »

Good to hear that two pilots are safe. Maybe both from the sukhoi? Hope the 3rd pilot is found safe and sound.

Very unusual indeed.
Manish_P
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Manish_P »

Manish_P wrote:Good to hear that two pilots are safe. Maybe both from the sukhoi? Hope the 3rd pilot is found safe and sound.

Very unusual indeed.
Edit - Sad news. Twitter handle of IAF reporting loss of one pilot

May God give strength to his family to bear his irreplaceable loss

Om Shanti
DrRatnadip
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by DrRatnadip »

Aditya_V
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Aditya_V »

Unfortunately 1 Pilot of the M2000 had fatal injuries, looks like dogfighting exercises gone wrong.
MeshaVishwas
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by MeshaVishwas »

Om shanti
mody
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by mody »

The M2K pilot has been confirmed dead. Very unfortunate incident. The aircrafts had taken off at 5.30 am. The two Su-30MKI pilots have only suffered minor injuries and managed to bail out safely.
mave_tg
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by mave_tg »

DrRatnadip wrote: https://m.timesofindia.com/india/aircra ... 394605.cms

Third aircraft loss today..
Looks like no third crash. Morena district collector Ankit Asthana said debris of both aircraft fell in the Pahargarh area of the district. Some debris also fell in the Bharatpur area in Rajasthan, which borders Madhya Pradesh, news agency PTI reported.

However, very sad news. Hope the 2 pilots recover soon and may God give strength to family of the departed pilot to bear with this irreparable loss. Om Shanti.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-ne ... 66513.html
Cyrano
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Cyrano »

Hé Bhagwan ! Om shanti to our brave pilot. What a sad news :(
At least the MKI pilots are OK.
Rakesh
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Rakesh »

Wg Cdr Hanumanth Rao Sarathi is the Mirage 2000 pilot that died in the mid air collision. My condolences to the family. A terrible loss.
AkshaySG
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by AkshaySG »

Terrible news all round. On Shanti to pilot and strength to their families.

Loss of two of our Frontline fighters in a time where there is an acute shortage is the salt on the wounds
Rakesh
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Rakesh »

Serial number of the Mirage 2000 that crashed was KF-128, as shown in the images of the crash. It was an upgraded aircraft.
Rony
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Rony »

https://twitter.com/EconomicTimes/statu ... 4k7NgwOsDA

Army helicopter crash in Rajasthan.

3 crashes within hours. something fishy
Shameek
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Shameek »

It does not seem the helicopter crash is true. The footage is from the other accident. The HT report above says there was no helicopter crash.
ramana
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ramana »

Om Shanthi to the pilot.
Hope the other two recover and fly again.
Interesting that they had a mid-air collision between two different planes.

What maneuver were they flying that brought the planes so close?
At sea, a small boat will steer towards the large ship due to flow fields.
Was something like this happening?
Abhibhushan, Hnair, Chetak what going on?
We will get many visitors and need to give informed opinion.
arvin
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by arvin »

Hope the pitch oscillation issue in Mirage 2000 has not reared its head again.

This article is 4 years old.
https://www.business-standard.com/artic ... 031_1.html
On February 1, two experienced Indian Air Force (IAF) pilots died when their newly upgraded Mirage 2000-I fighter crashed while taking-off in Bengaluru. A Court of Inquiry (CoI) investigating the accident is now confronting the worrying possibility of a glitch in the Mirage 2000’s flight computer that kicks in without warning, causing the aircraft to behave unpredictably.
ramana
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ramana »

Gwalior is the home to TACDE also. So its new tactics went awry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactics_a ... 0in%202009.

And Su-30 MKI was deployed in 2021 to evolve new tactics.

https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-s ... cs-1407235

Sad for the pilots are some of the top 1%.
basant
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by basant »

One of the two jets, I presume, crashed near Bharatpur. That's a distance of ~90km.
arvin
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by arvin »

https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/in ... id/1912842
"The black box of the Mirage aircraft has been found from the wreckage in Pahargarh area of Morena. A part of the Sukhoi aircraft's black box has also been found and the remaining part of the recorder might have fallen in Bharatpur," Morena Superintendent of Police Ashutosh Bagri told PTI over phone.
Assuming a mid-air collision, the parts in the rear of Sukhoi-30 seems to have taken the hit. Debris seems to be scattered along its path as it travelled (glided??) several kilometers forward.
ks_sachin
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ks_sachin »

^^^
How can you tell?
fanne
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by fanne »

One of the Twitter thread is saying that the su30mki pilots bailed out at the site of crash, and the unmanned su30mki flew some 100 km before crashing. Could be all wrong info so take it with caution.
If true, it shows how reliable two engine planes are in general and how good su30mki is (weight, redundancy etc.)
ramana
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ramana »

Rakesh,

Was the M2K of same vintage as the upgraded M2K that crashed a few years back? The most likely cause was the flight computer which was not upgraded.
Dassault did not want to open up that leg of the fault tree.
It's documented in this thread only.
Rakesh
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Rakesh »

ramana wrote:Rakesh,

Was the M2K of same vintage as the upgraded M2K that crashed a few years back? The most likely cause was the flight computer which was not upgraded.
Dassault did not want to open up that leg of the fault tree.
It's documented in this thread only.
Yes Ramana-ji, the M2K is of the same vintage. KF-128 is one of the early batches delivered to the IAF in the 1980s.
ramana
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ramana »

Yes KF 138 and KF 118 had pitch oscillations.
Now KF 128 crashed.

viewtopic.php?p=2360243#p2360243
ramana
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ramana »

I think there is an issue with the flight computer. Atleast four instances.

Also should ask Dassault for mfg records of these boxes to see any patters like operator, what time if day etc.

I would suggest shaking the box to factory acceptance test and re-accept them. Any box that fails should be examined jointly with France
Rakesh
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Rakesh »

ramana wrote:Yes KF 138 and KF 118 had pitch oscillations.
Now KF 128 crashed.

viewtopic.php?p=2360243#p2360243
Pitch oscillation is very likely possible.
arvin
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by arvin »

https://www.icas.org/ICAS_ARCHIVE/ICAS1 ... -4.5.1.pdf

This is a document written by Dassault test pilot about Mirage's fly by wire controls. Appears to be written in the 80s.
On page 3 there is a description about the fly by wire redundancies.
For pitch and roll control axis, there is quadriplicate channels.

Image

Interesting that inspite of having both analog and digital processing, possibility exists of such oscillations to occur as seen earlier.
rohitvats
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by rohitvats »

- First, we write sweet sounding posts saying we should not speculate what happened.

- Then, we do a long post(s) doing exactly that - speculating as to what happened.

- No one here is qualified even 0.000001% to comment on this subject. Especially when we don't know what exactly happened.

- Only hint is in the Twitter post by ex-IAF pilot where he mentions the dangers of closure at combined velocity of 600 m/s.

- So, if nothing but out of respect for the fallen pilot and others injured during the crash, please stop this nonsensical attempt at being Sherlock Holmes.

- If there is one takeaway from this tragedy, its that the IAF exercises for 1 vs 2 or even more scenarios involving the best of pilots and best of machines.
Indranil
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Indranil »

rohitvats wrote:- First, we write sweet sounding posts saying we should not speculate what happened.
May I double down on this.
Rakesh
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Rakesh »

My apologies. I have deleted my posts.
ramana
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ramana »

Was the collision in closing maneuver? Or wait aft end?
ramana
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ramana »

BTW rohit we haven't seen any IAF leader talk about the four aircraft in close proximity exhibiting similar phenomena.
So have to think why?

Maybe you can ask your contacts?
rohitvats
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by rohitvats »

ramana wrote:BTW rohit we haven't seen any IAF leader talk about the four aircraft in close proximity exhibiting similar phenomena. So have to think why?

Maybe you can ask your contacts?
ramana, as a matter of principle, in all these years of reading on and trying to understand defense matters, I never ask my friends in the Services about any information related to their work. My discussions are limited to military history, tactics and technology. All the info that I've gathered is from open source.

Coming to your question - All we know that it was a 2 vs 1 DACT where the Mirage-2000 was playing the aggressor. Remember, the deceased pilot was a Fighter Combat Leader (graduate of TACDE) and an Instructor. The Su-30MKI pilots were both Squadron Leaders, so safe to assume they were undergoing FCL course at TACDE.

And no IAF officer will comment on tactics or go into details of what they do. W/O knowing the parameters of the exercise, it would be speculation. But as I said in previous post, the only hint is about a comment on closure speed. Which indicates it could've been a WVR scenario with 2 vs 1.

PS: This is many years back, when the IN was to get Mig-29K and their pilots went to IAF Mig-29 squadron for conversion and training. I remember a shocked IN aviator commenting someplace that IAF Mig-29 chaps train for 1 vs 3 and even 1 vs 4 scenarios.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ramana »

Ok. So it was a head-on collision.

Thanks.
vinamr_s
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by vinamr_s »

Does anyone know if there is a significant difference between different aircraft in IAFs fleet in terms of their flying hours per aircraft ? I guess that is essential in knowing their true accident rate.

I did some calculations on some not-so-reliable numbers to find out accident rate (100 * accidents / size of fleet) of IAF's fleet. I sourced data mainly from the BR database but also from Wikipedia and a couple other secondary sources (India Today and WION). Spreadhseet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 76kKCox6c/. (It is quite possible that I got some figures wrong, so please correct me if I did.) By looking at the numbers, two questions come to my mind (which can only be answered if anyone knew the flying hours of different aircraft):

1. Why does Su-30 have similar number of accidents (11; according to BR database) as Mirage 2000 (13; acc to BR database), even though IAF has 5x Su-30 s as Mirage 2000 s? Is it that Mirage's log more flying hours or they're flown in different conditions?

2. MiG-21 accident and census data taken from India Today, which seems to be more recent than BR's database, puts it significantly higher than other MiGs and also Mirage 2000 for sure, 84% higher than Mirage 2000 and 15 to 39% higher than other MiGs, while if I consider BR's database it is 40% higher than Mirage 2000 and -6 to 13% higher than other MiGs (so not that different from other MiGs per BR's database). Is it that MiG 21's flying hours are significantly more than Mirage 2000 so that it contributes to a higher accident rate, or is the "flying coffin" the only hypothesis out there?
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ks_sachin »

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Last edited by ks_sachin on 03 Feb 2023 05:59, edited 2 times in total.
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