Military Flight Safety

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Indranil
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Indranil »

Rahul da,

Oversimplification alert.

These conditions are rarely spatial i.e. a collection of (rare) sensor readings. There are sequential in nature. Typically, in these conditions, the sensor readings have an oscillatory nature. So, do the FCS "corrections". In certain harmonics, these combine such that FCS provides larger and larger "corrections" per loop. This is because the FCS senses that aircraft is responding too little or too much.

Note that these flight control loops are running at a few tens of Hz (in LCA, it is 80 Hz). To a human observer, a build up over tens of loops seems like a sudden response. The Mirage test pilots had no chance. Even at high altitudes, the pilot can do nothing. The plane is unstable. A pilot can't fly it. A pilot can only hope that the fighter recovers. Otherwise, there is no option but to punch out.

The Gripen does have a fail-safe. It can float its canards. This makes the aircraft stable where a human can fly the aircraft. But, I don't know if this control switch is provided to the pilot.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ramana »

Indranil Do read the wiki on phugoid.
In it the pilot Solly who piloted the plane that went into Potomac talks about how the plane software dies not allow manual recovery.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ramana »

BTW I read about phugoid in Control System Theory decades ago. The minute Shuklaji wrote about pitch oscillations I knew what it was.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Rakesh »

ramana wrote:Rakesh I agree with Indranil. The three officers are looking from pilot safety point of view.
Arrester barrier failure is an artifact of the crash and should be fixed regardless. But fixing the arrester barrier won't prevent future M2K issues.
M2K FCS needs to be looked into.

I don't hold candle for Shukla but he is reporting what was told to him by IAF.

Usually bad things have earlier instances which only in hindsight are understood.
Those might have been ignored as they did not lead to crash.
The real question is what has Dassault done about this rare fault? And how often they saw it?

Seeing the inaction, most likely it's very rare occurrence.
Next phase of investigation in my.mind would be, What triggered the pitch oscillations?

Oscillations in a control system are due feedback and not sufficient damping

Let's see.
Ramana-ji, my issue is not with the data. My issue is how he is presenting or cherry-picking that data. Since the IAF provided him that data, then the IAF will have also provided him with the steps taken to find the root cause of these incidents. Even if it was as simple as touching base with Dassault and that would have been 100% documented. Otherwise if no steps were taken, then there is a serious issue with how the IAF responds to flight safety issues. But the IAF is a professional force and I am confident has examined these incidents. Each of the earlier incidents were reported by the pilot through the chain of command. Otherwise, this data would NOT exist.

My question to the author of the farticle still stands ---> What steps did the IAF take with the three earlier incidents of 1989, 1999 and 2014? What step did the IAF take with the incident post 01 Feb 2019 (the date of the fatal Mirage 2000TI trainer crash). The author received data on serial numbers, date of incident, altitude, g forces the pilots experienced during this pitch oscillation, etc, etc, etc. Then surely he has been provided other info as well, like investigations undertaken and the subsequent outcome. By the way, minor point (but important!) to note ---> The second incident mentioned states a Mirage 2000 with serial number C98. However, there is no Mirage 2000 in the Indian Air Force that has a serial number of C98. All single seater Mirage 2000s in the IAF have serial numbers starting with KF1XX and all twin seater Mirage 2000s in the IAF have serial numbers starting with KT2XX.

When viewed in isolation, it will appear that these are rare occurrences. But even rare occurrences are thoroughly investigated. The Su-30MKI fleet has been grounded post crashes. When the tail of an IAF MiG-29 split in two - during a mock dogfight - the IAF notified Mikoyan and thorough checks were done to the entire fleet before flying again. And that was a rare occurrence.

And Ramana-ji, you hit the nail on the head ---> The real question is what has Dassault done about this rare fault? And how often they saw it?

I have an equally real question ---> Did the Indian Air Force notify Dassault about the three earlier incidents? Did the Indian Air Force enquire if other Mirage 2000 operating nations have experienced this issue and what resolutions - if any - were put into effect? I am 100% confident that both those have been done.

And if this is indeed a FCS issue, it should affect a large - if not all - number of the worldwide M2K fleet. Otherwise if it is relegated to a small number, then it could be a quality control issue. The fatal accident of 01 Feb 2019 occurred on a twin seater Mirage 2000. I am sure the IAF has already looked into if this particular aircraft had a similar issue in its nearly 35 year service history. Lots of un-answered questions remain. To come up with a farticle like this, until the COI is completed, is in poor taste.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Indranil »

The article says what IAF did with those incidents.
Those earlier incidents, which the IAF investigated through internal inquiries, were never conclusively explained. Dassault, which supplies the flight computer, offered the explanation that the aircrafts’ “pitch rate gyrometers” — sensors that tell the flight computer the aircraft’s attitude – were not securely fitted. But neither the IAF, nor HAL, is convinced, since the Mirage 2000s behaved perfectly for the rest of the flight when the incidents occurred.

Furthermore, scans and analyses of the February 1 accident debris, which have been certified by NAL, do not support Dassault’s postulation that there might have been loose sensors. Dassault, after making a presentation to the IAF in April, is currently investigating its flight computer in France.
DAssault not wanting to fix this "rare" issue is actually quite logical. This will take time and money (lots of it). How can Dassault recover that? This will be put into that bucket of rarest of rare risks that Mirage operators will have to live with. The Space Shuttle had a 1 in 100 chance of catastrophic failure every time it flew. Known calculated risk.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Rakesh »

IR, the article also states this. Do we know what that HAL computer does? Is this HAL developed computer part of the M2K upgrade or did it exist prior to the upgrade?
The upgraded Mirage 2000-I fighters, of that kind that crashed on February 1, have two on-board computers. While one is developed and built by HAL, the computer that controls the aircraft’s flight is made entirely in France.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Indranil »

The flight control computer is untouched by HAL. The mission computer is. The mission computer has nothing to do with flying the aircraft.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ramana »

Rakesh, Its still in discovery phase of the fault tree. They are systematically going through the branches.

What happened was a look back at all prior unexplained incidents in IAF purview to see if they could in hindsight have identified earlier occurrences. And this was given to Shukla. And he wrote it up.
As for corrective action its not an accident or a failure per se.
So would not launch a COI.
Unfortunately this aircraft did crash and led to loss of life.

We should not forget that same batch of a/c delivered the SPICE at Balakot.


Indranil or JayS?

Pitch cycle oscillations are normal to aircraft and the purpose of the FCS is to minimize it by providing control authority.
They occur at altitude.
Now how would the a/c get into pitch cycle oscillations at five feet of the ground?
Did a sensor give false reading leading the computer to initiate pitch cycle oscillation mitigation?
Dassault is trying to say that pitch rate gyro could do that.
And is assigning loose mounting as a cause. But NAL is refuting that by looking at debris.
So now Dassault is looking at their FCS in Paris. This could be Hardware in loop simulation that only the designer would have.
So lets see for the next article.
The three officers on twitter are looking at pilot fatality and think the arrest barrier could have saved them.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by hnair »

From Col Shukla's article
Even luckier was another Mirage 2000 pilot who, as recently as February, experienced similar spontaneous commands from his flight computer while his fighter was taxiing out to the take off point, and was still on the ground.
A query - how would this particular pilot know about the flight computer instructions, since he was on the ground and wont experience aerial porpoising? Via some physical feedback in the stick or warning messages? Or did some alert ground staff notice the control surfaces fluttering uncharacteristically?
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by JayS »

Ramana, its difficult to say how or why such thing would happen. I am not so sure its Phugoid. It looks more like a case of uncommanded pitch down due to some rare combination of input parameters, which the FCS must have interpreted as uncommanded pitch up and hence tried to compensate it with its own uncommanded pitch down moment. From there its easy for the FCS to get into oscillations which would dampen as the situation causing the first disturbance would have vanished and the feedback loop in FCS then be able to bring the aircraft to equilibrium. But once thing missing in this picture is pilot input as a reaction to the first uncommanded pitch down by the FCS. The combination could aggravate or mitigate the situation based on the specifics of the situation. For example, in case of NLCA, in the first version of Ramp TO control law, the designers clipped the feedback gain for the AoA control loop so that the pitch up while on the ramp would not result in nose down command (pitch down) by FCS. But due to the late recognition of ramp exit event, this clipping which should end right at the exit of the ramp, continued for 1.3s afterwords, during which the aircraft was only partially stable now. This resulted in sharp pitch up which the FCS could not bring down due to the clipped feedback and the pilot had to give a sharp stick input to control the AoA.

A faulty sensor is obviously the first thing to look for. Once that is eliminated then FCS comes into question. If everything is OK with the HW, then only the Control Laws would be suspect. If the incidence in not the first one, and this is a known phenomenon, then its upto Dassault to deal with it. They sure can figure out based on the FDR data, but question is would they be convinced its their Control laws which have some fault and would they invest time and money in it..? At the least this should lead to an advisory to all M2K pilots appraising them about such situation and a bail out as SOP in such case to stop any future loss of precious life.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ramana »

I like your last line. Saving pilot lives is prthamo dharma. Especially on runway take off mode. From past it recovers at altitude.

I think Dassault will look closely now that lives were lost. And potentially it's in their FCS for other aircraft.

Maybe from what you saw India should have LCA folks be part of the team?
Indranil
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Indranil »

1. I don't think this is Phugoid. Something much more sudden and violent.
2. I will be very surprised if Dassault will put any serious money or time into this. Mirages are on their last legs anywhere in the world.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by JayS »

Agree on point 1. Just saw the details of previous incidences. The G-loading is beyond structural limits. I wonder if there was a Structural integrity review after each incidence to make sure its OK to let the planes continue flying.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by JayS »

ramana wrote:I like your last line. Saving pilot lives is prthamo dharma. Especially on runway take off mode. From past it recovers at altitude.

I think Dassault will look closely now that lives were lost. And potentially it's in their FCS for other aircraft.

Maybe from what you saw India should have LCA folks be part of the team?
I m sure the folks in the know would be involved in this. LCA control Law team is part of NAL.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Rahul M »

thanks IR.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by vasu raya »

Like the F-16 was modded to use the LCA control laws as part of testing the latter, can they do that now with M2000's?
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by MeshaVishwas »

Image
Hoping for the best.
This ALG has a scary approach.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by deejay »

Mechuka. C 17s have landed. If there's been something on approach, ALG staff would have known. Lets pray for the best but this is not looking good.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Sonugn »

Indian Air Force launches Sukhoi-30 combat aircraft and C-130 Special Ops aircraft on a search mission for locating the IAF AN-32 Aircraft that last contacted ground sources at 1 PM https://t.co/AciubbR92w
— ANI (@ANI) June 3, 2019
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Varoon Shekhar »

This is the fourth military air crash/incident in AP that i can remember offhand. The first one was with a defense official with the last name "Somu", then a bad one in 2011( where 6 of the 23 people survived) the Oct 2017 one that was caught on film, and now this. Just hoping for the best outcome here.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by gunnvant »

Varoon Shekhar
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Varoon Shekhar »

Hope that there are at least some survivors, that someone got out.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by MeshaVishwas »

Some reports of possible location of crash site were received, however, no wreckage has been sighted so far. 3/4
https://twitter.com/IAF_MCC/status/1135 ... 45856?s=19
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by aylamrin »

gunnvant wrote:The wreckage has been found https://twitter.com/delhidefence/status ... 2598141953
Chinese SAM?
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by gunnvant »

No updates yet. Chinese SAM will be far too speculative. Let's not make guesses
ramana
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ramana »

aylamrin wrote:
gunnvant wrote:The wreckage has been found https://twitter.com/delhidefence/status ... 2598141953
Chinese SAM?

Wreckage was found 40 km from the ALG site.
I wish people read and think before speculating.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ArjunPandit »

I hate this thread being active. As pointed out earlier, quite a lot of accidents in last few years, whats could be the issue? Our AF flies in much more varied and difficult terrain. Dont want to start speculating but want to understand the challenges in flying there.
I hope we dont end up with casualties.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ramana »

Why don't you find out how many AN-32 had crashed in the past and where?
Will give something to take mind of morbid thoughts.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Prithwiraj »

last three chronologically....
1. One lost over Bay of Bengal - all hands lost
2. One overshooting runway recently - no loss of life
3. Current one - chances of survival is remote
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ramana »

0 Ten years ago. Same area, same time. All hands lost. COI said the weather was cloudy and led to disorientation and crashed.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Manish_P »

:( Big loss

May the families of the lost be blessed with strength to bear their loss.

Om Shanti
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by MeshaVishwas »

IAF AN-32 CRASH 03 JUNE 2019: MY FIRST THOUGHTS-Capt.K P Sanjeev Kumar(Ret)
An Indian Air Force An-32 aircraft with 13 crew onboard went missing after taking off from Jorhat at about 12:27 PM on 3rd June 2019. The aircraft bound for Menchuka ALG in Arunachal Pradesh went off the air reportedly around 1 PM. Overdue action was initiated by IAF authorities as per standard procedure.

Some reports suggest that the wreckage has been located. But as of late night, 3rd June 2019, there’s no official news on the fate of those on board. Thoughts and prayers continue as hopes diminish with each passing minute. Hills, capricious weather and flights undertaken therein under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) have claimed many aircraft and helicopters.

Vintage aircraft like the An-32 are robust in airframe & engines. But they do not possess modern aids to negotiate safely through this deadly cocktail that may let you escape one day only to trap you another day. Ask any military pilot. All of us have stories to tell about brothers and comrades lost to this Russian roulette (pun intended).

One hopes this does not end up as another data point on some tote board of accidents. Ironic, but ten years ago in June 2009, another IAF An-32 had crashed in Arunachal Pradesh’s far-flung West Siang district. The wreckage of the plane, again with 13 occupants, was found 24 hours later. Have we learnt something over these 10 years that could have prevented this crash?

As an investigation into the accident proceeds, let me put before you some initial thoughts.

Flying in the hills brings with it unique challenges, both for man and machine. Aircraft have to negotiate mountain passes, navigate with external references, often out of range of ground-based navigational aids such as VOR, DME, ILS etc. Terminal segments of the sortie are almost always VFR, which implies ‘see & be seen, hear & be heard’.

On a VFR flight plan, onus for clearance from terrain and other aircraft rests solely with the crew, thereby exonerating a host of other agencies. There is no radar ‘vectors’ or Jeppesen approach plate that safely guides you down to a 10000 feet runway. Helicopters hug valley floors or fly along ridge lines. Transport aircraft such as the An-32 have very little elbow room negotiating such routes. Their turning radius vis-a-vis lay of the hills & valleys can trap them with little choice. In some cases, even applying full TOGA power may not be enough to safely exit from a situation not of one’s choosing (TOGA = Take Off & Go-Around).

Modern aids such as Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS), Terrain Awareness & Warning System (TAWS), Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B), Traffic & Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), etc are not standard features in Indian military aircraft fleet. Even if some of these aids are available, institutional disdain for such aids is commonplace. For instance, I never saw or operated an operational TAWS in my entire service in the Navy (1991-2014). The same is in wide use in civil aviation. This with my experience as a test pilot. I hope today we fare better.

Thus, a tenuous balance of aeronautical decision making, sortie planning, local knowledge, experience and skill ensures safe flying for the most part. But when the chips are down – say, for instance, an inflight emergency, bad weather, or a combination of both – the already slender error margins close from either side to seal the crew’s fate.

The funny part is, it was not always like this.

There was a time when military requirements spawned technologies that were adopted by civil aviation in due course. The explosive growth of military aviation between the two World Wars spurred the growth of aviation industry as a whole.

Alas, those days are all but over. Through continuous legislation, costly accidents, intense competition and a bipartisan policy framework, focus on passenger safety has ensured airline travel remains one of the safest modes of transport. High rate of midair collisions gave rise to TCAS in the 80s. Series of Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) accidents led to invention of GPWS in 70s.

The same cannot be said about military aviation whose job often entails going down harm’s way. We just seem to lump it.

Specifically in the Indian context, our approach to safety has been reactionary rather than preventive. There is a marked reluctance – bordering on indifference – towards adopting modern technologies; especially from senior lot comatose with their ‘in my time’ stories. There’s also the chance – more so because there’s hardly any operational costing analyses – that we may actually lose through slow attrition more than what we save through episodic display of ‘bravery’ or ‘eyeballing’ innovative solutions.

Two anecdotes come to mind.

In 2016, the outgoing Air Chief ACM Arup Raha described the loss of an IAF An-32 in Bay of Bengal as “one of the worst moments in my life”. The aircraft with 29 souls onboard disappeared without a trace while on a ferry flight from Chennai to Port Blair. As quoted in an interview, ACM Raha admitted that “we searched a lot, undertook 300 sorties, over 1000 flying hours”.

Can somebody put a ‘cost’, however insensitive, to that effort and compare that with mitigating strategies, even with the benefit of hindsight?

Of course, the massive search operation returned a blank. A simple device called Underwater Locator Beacon (ULB) or Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT), available as a COTS item for years, had eluded us. Sure, the ULB could not have prevented the accident; it is not meant for that purpose. But why did the same IAF that sent Sqn Ldr Rakesh Sharma to space in 1984 wake up to the need for a ULB in 2016?

The answer may possibly lie in how we value human life – our inability to prioritise safety over optics, a bevy of imported equipment procured from motley countries that do not ‘talk’ to each other, with a ‘cowboy’ attitude to boot.

When the unthinkable happens, we pull out all stops, deploy an army of rescue forces (which costs are hidden & unaccounted for), celebrate bravado and dole out awards for ‘saving the day’.

In Aug 2005, a naval Kamov-28 ASW helicopter crashed into the hills near Belgaum while on a cross-country mission. I lost two good friends among the four who perished. The crash site was so thickly forested and inaccessible that commandos had to be called in. One survivor was found near the crash site in a delirious condition four days later, seriously injured with maggot-infested wounds (he was rescued to safety and eventually returned to duty). The sole unhurt survivor of the crash who radioed for help via mobile phone went missing, never to be found again (he reportedly strayed away from crash site to look for help – a cardinal mistake).

A similar crash of a naval Islander in 1985 led to a mammoth tri-service search effort. With great difficulty they finally managed to recover skeletal remains of all onboard, months later. Authorising a VFR aircraft, which reportedly ‘continued VFR flight into IMC conditions’ in foul weather, brought to end the promising career of a young naval crew. That pilot’s younger brother is Flag Officer Naval Aviation today. The victim’s father was then a serving AOC-in-C in IAF. I heard the retired Air Marshal’s chilling account first-hand in 1996. Yet, on ground today, we see no real change. GPWS, EGPWS, TAWS, TCAS, even a modern weather radar, are luxuries in the navy of 2019 today. Why?

More irony. Exactly two years to the day the naval KV-28 crashed into Western Ghats, another KV-28 from the same Ranvijay Flight undertook the very same ferry (Aug 2007), almost along the same route, under equally marginal conditions, weighed down by a similar set of operational requirements. It was uneventful, but that’s just the roll of dice.

Me and the protagonist of the Aug 2006 flight silently sent up a prayer for Rambo & Sherawat whom we lost a year ago. Meanwhile, nothing had changed on ground. There was an embargo on ‘monsoon cross-country’ that could be managed with certain ‘approvals’ from HQ.

So if Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha rued ‘the worst moment in his life’ with pension-coma setting in as he hung his boots, his successors with time on their hands must surely look deeper into a ‘mountain’ of dead people who slammed into hillsides or slept in Davy Jones’ Locker (bottom of the sea).

We seem to have reached a peculiar situation where it is easier to deploy a mammoth task force to look for dead people than to keep them safely airborne with modern aids. There is something horribly wrong if SAR effort out-scales procurement & training strategies that reduce such instances. Some ‘points to ponder’ are listed below:

Define clear GO/NO GO criteria for such peacetime / less-than-war operations.
Define minimum equipment fit for such ops.
Adopt modern safe practices, even if they emanate from civil aviation.
Make modern technologies such as Mode S transponder, GPWS, TAWS, TCAS, SVS, ADS-B, NVGs, etc. a standard fit (with option to use or disable as necessary).
Get down to nuts & bolts of operational costing where necessary. Use them to defend your cases for upgrades defined above.
Get into the ‘unmanned’ or UAS realm where possible. Aircraft don’t differentiate between day & night, fog or mist; crew do.
Educate crew in ‘aeronautical decision making’ and discourage tendency to celebrate false bravado.
Encourage lateral osmosis of knowledge and experience from civil aviation to fine tune own processes.
Set up empowered, cross-functional teams to study / analyse historic accident data and recommend implementable processes to prevent such accidents.
Make imported equipment like transponders, IFF & data links ‘talk’ to each other.
We have a new naval chief. PM Narendra Modi has been re-elected and holds a massive mandate. New Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh will soon settle down in office after photo ops. Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa is the new (albeit short-term) Chairman Chief of Staff Committee. National Security Advisor Ajit Doval has been elevated to Cabinet Rank for next 5 years.

Surely we can do better than just say ‘Jai Shree Ram’ or ‘Rest in Peace’?
https://kaypius.com/2019/06/04/iaf-an-3 ... -thoughts/
Sobering read.
:|
About the author:
https://www.stratpost.com/author/kpsanjeev/
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by sum »

In Aug 2005, a naval Kamov-28 ASW helicopter crashed into the hills near Belgaum while on a cross-country mission. I lost two good friends among the four who perished. The crash site was so thickly forested and inaccessible that commandos had to be called in. One survivor was found near the crash site in a delirious condition four days later, seriously injured with maggot-infested wounds (he was rescued to safety and eventually returned to duty). The sole unhurt survivor of the crash who radioed for help via mobile phone went missing, never to be found again (he reportedly strayed away from crash site to look for help – a cardinal mistake).
:shock: :shock:
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Khalsa »

Yeah I can't believe he did that. That is the cardinal rule taught at all flight schools. Stick within 100 metres of your wreckage for the first 7 days when SAR tempo is the highest.

Either way a damned fine and a sobering read. Kudos to him for putting it together.
I agree its time to rock the boat hard and hey I know the IAF is doing the best job it can under the circumstances.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by JayS »

The article above brings out the dangers/uncertainties embedded in the Mil Aviation. Modernization should be able to avoid at least few of the incidences and help in rescue in some others, but no amount of technology is going to completely eliminate crashes. That's how it is. Salute to the men who choose to fly willingly despite the dangers involved.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by JTull »

I get the feeling that these articles are pre-written and start appearing immediately after a crash. If such ex-servicemen are really concerned about safety than cheap publicity, then they should start by talking about what they achieved during their service lives to make it happen.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by MeshaVishwas »

JTull wrote:If such ex-servicemen are really concerned about safety than cheap publicity, then they should start by talking about what they achieved during their service lives to make it happen.
Not the right time for blue on Blue Saar.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by MeshaVishwas »

Additional information from Vishnu NDTV:
Missing Air Force An-32 Had SOS Signal Unit That's 14 Years Obsolete
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/missing ... 6X6Y6A7z6l
New Delhi: The Search and Rescue Beacon, installed onboard the missing Indian Air Force An-32 has not been in production for 14 years. While it may still have been operational, no signal from the unit has been detected by rescuers trying to home in on the wreckage of the aircraft. The An-32, with 13 onboard, stopped communicating with ground controllers at 1 pm on Monday.
The legacy An-32 transport that took off from Assam's Jorhat yesterday at 12:25 pm on a flight to the Mechuka Air Landing Ground in Arunachal Pradesh was equipped with a single Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) called the SARBE 8, manufactured by the British Firm Signature Industries. The SARBE 8 was installed in the cargo compartment of the Soviet-built An-32 and was meant to send out a distress signal if the aircraft impacted with a force of 20G (twenty times the force of gravity) or more.

This distress signal was meant to have been picked up by a satellite belonging to Cospas-Sarsat, an international satellite-aided search and rescue facility. Additionally, a distress signal would also have been heard by search aircraft which had tuned into 242 MHz, the international air distress frequency reserved for aircraft in distress.

A 2004 press release attributed to Signature Industries says "orders for models SARBE 5, 6, 7, and 8, will be accepted only until January 2005, with deliveries planned during 2005. Batteries, spares, service and support will still be available after that date." The release goes on to say, "Organizations using this type of equipment should note that changes in the satellite monitoring facilities for Personal Locator Beacons mean that older products face obsolescence by 2009." The SARBE 8 Emergency Locator Transmitter was replaced by a unit called the SARBE G2R-ELT, now sold by Orolia, a US and France based company set up in 2006.

The Indian Air Force, which was the launch customer of the Antonov An-32 aircraft, began inducting the type in 1986. Presently, the IAF is thought to operate 105 of the aircraft which play a key role in equipping and stocking Indian soldiers in high altitude areas along the China frontier. In 2009, India signed a $400 million contract with Ukraine to upgrade and extend the operational life of its fleet of An-32s. The upgraded An-32 RE aircraft, 46 of which have been inducted come equipped with two contemporary Emergency Locator Transmitters - the ARTEX C406-1 and the portable KANNAD 406AS considered at least a generation ahead of the unit onboard the aircraft which may have gone down in Arunachal Pradesh. This An-32 had still not been upgraded.
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With no sign of the wreckage of the aircraft, despite early reports of a potential crash site, the Indian Air Force, Army, Navy and Indo-Tibetan Border Police have deployed multiple assets to try and find the aircraft. The Indian Navy is the latest to join with its P-8 maritime reconnaissance aircraft which is fitted with a powerful synthetic aperture radar, infrared and electro-optical sensors which may be useful in locating wreckage in a heavily forested and mountainous region.
manjgu
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2615
Joined: 11 Aug 2006 10:33

Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by manjgu »

penny wise..pound foolish. the indian cavalier attitude to human life. i dont know why we can launch rockets, satellites etc but cant do this basic stuff. terrible...
ramana
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Posts: 59773
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ramana »

We dont know what caused the crash. The previous incident in same area was attributed to weatehr and effect on pilot orientation.

I want to take Presstitute and media hungry folks with a pinch of salt.

Every incident is converted into an argument for imports and more money. and incompetence as if these folks were the epitome of efficiency when they served.

One immediate corrective action would be to fly the portable ELT KANNAD 406AS on non upgraded flights.

Maybe rotate the instrument among the flights.
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