Military Flight Safety

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Mar 2019 00:33

Regarding the M2K upgrade crash during takeoff

https://twitter.com/akananth/status/110 ... 96640?s=19

Not IAF pilot error but HAL upgrade tech glitch suspected in Bengaluru Mirage 2000 crash https://t.co/gCxSKVdk84

Indranil · Post by **Indranil** » 21 Mar 2019 01:40

Ramana sir,

A little disappointed in you for bringing that garbage of a report here. That is a perfect example of DDM. Its headline is purposefully modified to hurt an Indian company for no fault of it.

Does HAL have any of flight control software of Mirage. If not, then why is HAL being blamed and not Dassault? Did an Indian company make the barrier? Did an Indian company make the ejection system?

That reporter should know that his malice will not continue for very long.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Mar 2019 01:53

raghuk wrote:A post from one of our guys who was personally involved in the process. I just wanted to put it in here because Twitter is filled with opinionated folks with very little understanding and information.

"I feel I owe an apology and clarification to the BoB.

Let me explain the process and what happened yesterday.

When a Mirage is overhauled, it is offered to us for flight testing. We test it rigorously and only when satisfied, hand the aircraft over to ASTE, which is the flight test agency of IAF. They put the aircraft through another series of tests and when they are satisfied, the aircraft goes to the field for op utilisation. The two stage testing is to doubly ensure that the aircraft meets all parameters in the field.

....

In this particular case, we had finished testing and handed over the aircraft to ASTE. The first sortie flown by late Abrol had only three words of debrief over the phone 'everything ok sir'. The second sortie was to be flown with a target aircraft to check radar performance. A comparitively benign profile. The accident happened on take off roll.

.....

Conjectures

Did I miss something during our tests. .....

There could be any number of reasons ranging from technical defect, maintenance failure to pilot error. As of now, there are more questions than answers. One that the pilots will understand- how can an aircraft travel 6 markers with undercarriage up. Then go through barrier, sga and a wall and explode. But I saw it happen. HV Thakur is conducting the CoI. Most of us will remember him as ACC 80th course. IAF will also conduct its own Col. Hopefully truth will come out.

In defence of my outburst, in this case when you blame HAL, you are not blaming a nameless faceless organisation, ... I feel by virtue of belonging to this BoB, I deserve a fair inquiry before being blamed.

As far as HAL producing sub standard aircraft, remember that we fly these aircraft to its limits before anyone from IAF touches it.

That does not mean that everything is ok with HAL. It only means that before an aircraft goes to IAF it's standards are good enough for me to bet my life on it. Remember, every pilot in IAF is also betting his life on my judgement.

If you have read through this long post. Thanks for your patience."

Om Shanthi to the departed souls.
Cheers!

Sorry for not having the read this post when it was posted..
I truly believe in Root Cause Analysis and effective corrective action.
I also believe in not shooting the messenger as I will lose the expertise built over long years.
And more importantly no one will come forward to tell the bad news.
This is important for any organization to survive.

A few questions if I may
1) Was this M2K and overhaul or an upgrade? Crucial for we will know its old design or new design.
2) If its overhaul what gets changed?
2a) Was there a software upgrade?
2b) Were there any black boxes replaced?
3) In this aircraft only one take off by ASTE and how many HAL? In other words did the a/c go through many sorties after the overhaul?
4) Today The Print article by S Philip says video shows the plane nose pitched down along the take off run. This means it was commanded down. Was there a sensor issue or what would cause the FCS to command the nose down?

I know the aircraft burned down but does HAL have a Hardware in the Loop (HWIL) for the M2K that can simulate the accident?

The Print article for reference...

New Delhi: It wasn’t pilot error but a possible lapse during the aircraft upgrade process that led to the 1 February Mirage 2000 crash at the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) airport in Bengaluru, the court of inquiry (CoI) has found.

....
According to the CoI, the crash was caused by an “uninitiated control input” — or a software glitch — during the jet’s user acceptance trial.

....

HAL sources told ThePrint that since the CoI is yet to be finalised, it will be premature to comment. They added that HAL has nothing to do with the software of the aircraft.

The investigation, which is still in progress, is now trying to pin-point the exact reason behind the glitch that made the aircraft slam down after ascending five metres off the ground, top sources in the defence establishment told ThePrint.

......
Footage of crash proves key

State-run HAL is carrying out an upgrade of the Mirage 2000 fighters, manufactured by the French firm Dassault.

According to the sources, a software glitch was the main cause behind the crash, suggesting a mistake in the upgrade process.

“Even the soldering done on the hardware can actually send wrong signals to the software, which acts accordingly,” one source explained.

The software of a fighter jet is basically the mission computer, the aircraft’s central system that controls all avionics and other systems.

The aircraft involved in the 1 February crash had been subjected to six test flights by HAL, and was on its second test by the IAF when it crashed.

The entire sequence of the crash has been caught on video, and the footage, along with the jet’s black box, has proved key in unravelling the cause of the accident. The black box was sent to France for analysis.

The video shows the start of the trial, as the aircraft’s brakes are released and the flight is accelerated. At about 13 seconds from wheel roll, the sources said, the nose wheel is seen lifting off the ground with the plane taking off seven seconds later.

When the aircraft is about five metres from the ground, the sources added, its nose pitches sharply downwards, with the jet then hitting the runway on its main wheels and tail.

“This sudden action is not due to human error, the CoI has found till now,” one of the sources said.

To me this article says its an upgrade plane.
Usually black boxes go through Acceptance Test Procedures that shake rattle and roll them to flight levels to ensure there are no mechanical faults like soldering etcas the "source" said.

It could be something deeper like pick and place machine fingers force that cracks electronic components and the crack manifests much later.
I guess second phase is to review all the components in the flight control computer loop.
To me recalling the Boeing 737Max 8, the likely cause could be a faulty attitude sensor that gave wrong signals to the flight computer. We saw that in the Lion Air and Ethiopian Air crash.

Abhibhushan sir please comment.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Mar 2019 01:54

IR I take data where it comes and look for what is useful.
Please see my above post.

Indranil · Post by **Indranil** » 21 Mar 2019 04:01

Sorry Ramana sir,

I pity our milind complex. The number of vested interests they have to fight with their hand and mouths tied is amazing.

Got carried away.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Mar 2019 04:33

The key is was this a hidden fault in the FCS suite ?

I have dealt with cracked resistors due to excessive force in the pick and place calipers!!!
At the right environment it opens up.

---
When the first Anglo-Orient College was opened in Calcutta there was derision and fear.
The Indian leaders said they wanted the students to be exposed to Western education and they would separate the milk from the water.
I was always struck by that sentiment and keep my mind open.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 21 Mar 2019 09:39

Only thing worth using from that mess of an article is that there possibly was some sensor issue triggering a pitch down action. Everything else is masala, to target HAL. M2k upgrade doesn't touch fcs iirc.

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 21 Mar 2019 09:57

Ramana, we place literally millions of chips every day. Crack during pick and place wouldn't even show up on the PPQ (Part per Quadrillion) scale. Even if it did, it will blow during the HASS process, the sole purpose of which is to catch similar things (which have more probability in manual operations). We do not permit manual soldering in certain assemblies like missile electronics for obvious reasons. However, there is this Achilles heel, which is the field repairs. The way the BRD guys go through the repair is terrible.

Avionics Hardware failure causing accidents is practically unheard of, because of the care taken in design, build and screen processes, plus the redundancies built in. The fault tree is very carefully managed, so that any failure is taken care of in a logical and sensible way.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 21 Mar 2019 10:21

ramana wrote:When the aircraft is about five metres from the ground, the sources added, its nose pitches sharply downwards, with the jet then hitting the runway on its main wheels and tail.[/size]

“This sudden action is not due to human error, the CoI has found till now,” one of the sources said.

Nose Pitches down sharply , Sounds like MCAS in the making .....Fault Sensor Reading + FCS reacting to faulty reading.

I read 12 Mirages were upgraded to UPG standard and the one that crashed was another UPG upgrade put through its paces.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Mar 2019 19:28

Prasad wrote:Only thing worth using from that mess of an article is that there possibly was some sensor issue triggering a pitch down action. Everything else is masala, to target HAL. M2k upgrade doesn't touch fcs iirc.

That's was what caught my attention. The most likely cause is in this branch of the fault tree.

Pilot Error was ruled out.
Also HAL screwing up undercarriage also ruled out.

Now going by Dileep's post it could be a field repair of a sensor/box.
I hope there were no FCS software upgrades.

Waiting for Abhibhushan sir to weigh in on the COI process.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Mar 2019 19:31

Dileep, I understand all that. Yet the crash occurred.
This is like the Swiss cheese model.
The fault went through multiple layers of Swiss cheese holes that aligned and manifested itself on that fateful day.
Need to find which layer could have prevented it.
Root cause analysis requires open mind and not immediate countering.
Belt, rope and suspenders wont help if the pants are torn.

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 21 Mar 2019 21:27

Ramana, what I said is, the specific failure mode of "crack during SMT placement" is outright unlikely, not worth mentioning as a potential root cause. Bad repair might qualify as a failure mode.

My money is on some "mode setting" that the crew forgot/failed to reset.

JayS · Post by **JayS** » 21 Mar 2019 21:43

Any HW issue in circuitry would have shown up much before the flight testing itself, not after 7 flawless flights. I am pretty sure all the circuits and HW components are checked thoroughly after such significant upgrade or overhaul with multitude of tests and LSTT/HSTT et al. Mis-placed soldering looks like imagination of an amateur robotics hobbist kid. Perhaps that was inserted only to make something stick to HAL's name. Who knows.

And if CoI is not finished whats the point of the news..? Its clearly a planted one. That reporter writes like a tabloid reporter with churning out pointless articles for any and every chatter going around. Signal to noise ratio is simply too low.

VikramS · Post by **VikramS** » 29 Mar 2019 09:49

Budgam: Indian missile fired before Mi17 V5 chopper crash
Preliminary findings show system was activated after Mi17 V5 showed on radar; IAF for tough action.

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 623744.cms

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 29 Mar 2019 10:59

VikramS wrote:Budgam: Indian missile fired before Mi17 V5 chopper crash
Preliminary findings show system was activated after Mi17 V5 showed on radar; IAF for tough action.

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 623744.cms

Very Sad , Friendly Fire Incident we lost 6 IAF personal

This should not have happened. Specially if the system should have detected a chopper and verified it via RT before firing.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 29 Mar 2019 11:08

cruel blow of fate, but war is like that and fratricide a fact of life.
only a war or near-war exposes and stresses the command chain and equipment to breaking point and creates these failures. normally in exercises and simulations things will be better.

lessons will be learnt and adaptions introduced for sure. this was our first near war day after 1971 when you consider the IAF. in kargil there was hardly any paf air threat and it was one small sector up north...and that too was 20 years ago - those pilots are retired, one is a AM in WAC. lot of changes in SAM/ADGES and C3I since then. more complex.

Lilo · Post by **Lilo** » 29 Mar 2019 11:23

What was the IAF SAM in question which purportedly downed the MI17 in friendly fire?

Thakur_B · Post by **Thakur_B** » 29 Mar 2019 11:39

Lilo wrote:What was the IAF SAM in question which purportedly downed the MI17 in friendly fire?

SpyDer

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 29 Mar 2019 12:57

VikramS wrote:Budgam: Indian missile fired before Mi17 V5 chopper crash
Preliminary findings show system was activated after Mi17 V5 showed on radar; IAF for tough action.

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 623744.cms

Guys it you read the article it only speaks of missile being fired. It doesn't speak of it killing the mi17.

I find it interesting that a few days after Pakistani jet getting killed in friendly fire. We are seeing this report in Indian media.

I would suggest wait for the COI to finish the job. Only then reach any conclusions.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 29 Mar 2019 16:29

The dossiers are just an eyewash for us to to tell the international community that we played by the "oh lets be so peaceful" rules and Pakistan did nothing, forcing us to take harsher measures. Its a charade which is in our benefit to continue as we keep hitting Pakistan with surgical strikes or air strikes or Arty fire assaults across the LOC.

nam · Post by **nam** » 29 Mar 2019 16:38

Blue-on-Blue in modern warfare is probably the biggest risk. It will probably get even worse with system failures, advance ECM, long range missile, stealth, small drones without IFF etc.

Patriot must have downed more NATO jets than enemy ones.

In olden times, it was good old human eyes and guns.

With the news of Pak drone being shot down in Kutch, the SAM team would have been on high alert. An unidentified drone could be a Indian one without IFF or an Pak one. So it is very easy to mis-identify an target.

Only real life experience can show up the faults. Nothing beats it.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 29 Mar 2019 16:51

in WW1 and WW2 there were horrific blue on blue incidents - 100's sometimes 1000's being killed
danger of industrialised warfare

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 29 Mar 2019 18:44

a report on why a patriot battery shot down a raf tornado killing both pilots is here

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/2 ... t_missile/

IFF failure at both ends, esp the a/c not responding to IFF codes can cause a harmless blue target to get classified as red.
also the systems even in those days were autonomous and would interrogate and tag potential blues and reds based on their algorithms
of special threat were incoming ARMs and this what the tornado was wrongly tagged as
the ground crew had limited time to make up their minds and fire

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 29 Mar 2019 21:06

Aren't you all sewing silk purses on a pakistani's ear, with this? Someone says that an Air Defence Missile was fired. True that a helicopter crashed. What else happened? There were several lost Paki AMRAAMs in the vicinity too, why are you so quick to remove them from blame?

My guess is that an air defense missile (esp. "Israeli") would have been used to target an incoming missile not a helicopter. The Pakonomic Crimes has a long record of anti-Indian propaganda: why rush to lend credence? And even they DO NOT say that the missile was the one that hit the helicopter.

My question remains: Is rice-eating banned at BRF these days, hain? How smart does one have to be to at least STFU unless there is confirmation from authoritative sources? Has the Court of Inquiry announced its findings, or have you conducted your own? Let's see:

1. Heard someone farting that "An Indian mijjile was phyrred onlee"
2. Concluded that that MUST be the one that hit the helicopter, although there were 24 other missles and assorted Paki F-16s in the air across the LOC inside India.

Q.E.D. Wow! I am amazed at the standards of proof required to start dhoti-shivering.

"Blue On Blue" Why Blue? Does IAF/IA wear the same uniforms as the cricket team?

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 29 Mar 2019 21:27

have you ruled out the possibility that the Mi17 hit a low flying Yak?

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 29 Mar 2019 21:36

The Mongolian speaks the truth. No conclusive evidence, one news report, and all of you jumping to a conclusion. Wait for the COI results.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 29 Mar 2019 21:56

Karan M wrote:The Mongolian speaks the truth. No conclusive evidence, one news report, and all of you jumping to a conclusion. Wait for the COI results.

I am not sure if they make COI report every public , do they ?

Only via media leaks we get to know why xyz crashed.

Shameek · Post by **Shameek** » 29 Mar 2019 22:19

Like most of us here, I have been following the narrative in India and Bak for the last couple of months. A pattern below I have noticed with each incident that sometimes even reflects on BRF. It would be immensely frustrating to our armed forces that speak the truth, do what is right, admit and correct mistakes and yet have a large % of the country doubt their achievements while our enemies stand firmly behind their lies and propaganda.

Balakot Strike
India: Did we really hit the target? Did the bombs work? How many people were there? Is this all a political game?
Bak: We chased the Indians away. Nothing was hit, and no one hurt. All their bombs missed.

Puke Strike
India: Did we have enough planes? Were we not prepared? Why couldn’t we fire BVRs? Why did our plane get shot down? Why do we use old planes? Where is the F-16 proof?
Bak: We missed on purpose to prove a point. We shot down 2 planes. We didn’t lose any. No proof of F16. India invented AAMRAAM proof.

Mi 17 Crash
India: Is our strategy wrong? Do we have no IFF rules? Was this an IA missile?
Bak: We sent planes close to the border and Indians shot down their own helicopter in return.

syam · Post by **syam** » 29 Mar 2019 22:32

Saar, let's not ignore this pubby guy. He was the one who first broke abhi story from our side. Shiv aroor retweeted it. Now this story which quotes many secret sources. We should note this tongue in cheek reporting.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 29 Mar 2019 23:16

Austin wrote:
Karan M wrote:The Mongolian speaks the truth. No conclusive evidence, one news report, and all of you jumping to a conclusion. Wait for the COI results.
I am not sure if they make COI report every public , do they ?

Only via media leaks we get to know why xyz crashed.

Wait for more reports to emerge.

VKumar · Post by **VKumar** » 29 Mar 2019 23:50

VikramS wrote:Budgam: Indian missile fired before Mi17 V5 chopper crash
Preliminary findings show system was activated after Mi17 V5 showed on radar; IAF for tough action.

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 623744.cms

Unfortunate but true

Katare · Post by **Katare** » 30 Mar 2019 01:58

We are just starting..... the real story would trickle over next several months.

disha · Post by **disha** » 30 Mar 2019 02:18

VKumar wrote:

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 623744.cms
Unfortunate but true

In what way what is true? Can you please post your assumption and conclusively prove that those assumptions from the information given from the above mentioned article proves it?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 30 Mar 2019 07:22

That Manu Pubby has been a pest. Dont believe his nonsense

VikramS · Post by **VikramS** » 30 Mar 2019 07:24

disha wrote:
VKumar wrote:
Unfortunate but true
In what way what is true? Can you please post your assumption and conclusively prove that those assumptions from the information given from the above mentioned article proves it?

With the Mi17 coming down in the manner it did there were suspicions of:

Jehadi ManPad
PAF Long Range AMRAAM
Friendly Fire

There have been enough blue on blue stories in a quick reaction environment that #3 could not be ruled out.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/that-t ... 89d7d03b7d

I almost cried when I read that news; but it is also something the IAF can fix.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 30 Mar 2019 07:29

Lalmohan wrote:have you ruled out the possibility that the Mi17 hit a low flying Yak?

What an insult! Yaks can fly quite high. The Pakonomic Crimes report is:
1 There was an Indian missile fired. Probably anti missile weapon, triggered by the incoming AMRAAMs.
2. A helicopter crashed. No doubt there.
3. IAF when asked, IF an Indian missile hit the helicopter, and if ppl disobeyed procedures they may be court-martialed.
4. Ergo! Therefore it must be Indian missile that hit helicopter. Wow! That's paklogic.

And BRFees go into condolences and self-flagellation.

Rajiv Lather · Post by **Rajiv Lather** » 30 Mar 2019 16:39

According to various newspapers and news sites like Punjab Kesri, Business Standard, Outlook, ANI, International Business Times, Bhaskar, Loksatta etc the black box of the Mi-17 seems to be missing.

Some reports that 'hostile locals' may have carried it away begs the question if they have the required knowledge to search for and identify the said piece of equipment. One also has to wonder how the authorities allowed such locals to rummage through the debris.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 30 Mar 2019 17:03

Black box is a misnomer. It can be a brightly colored (orange often) box with handles, that is designed to be visible, easily visually located and of course, relatively indestructible. Problem is if it "looks" valuable, it will attract undue interest. It may have been taken due to perception of value or curiosity or even trophy collection, not merely because of some sinister motive.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 30 Mar 2019 17:17

continuing from viewtopic.php?p=2338631#p2338631

civilian black-boxes have a transmitter usually, do military ones have those as well ?

nam · Post by **nam** » 30 Mar 2019 18:10

The war between NATO jets and Patriot SAM!

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/that-t ... 89d7d03b7d