Military Flight Safety

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JayS
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by JayS »

Whether 20T or 40T, max energy absorption capability of 13.5 MJ sounds ridiculous. That's bared 10 or 20% of the total KE based on which weight category we are talking about. Something looks amiss.

Given HAL was a full fledged Civil Airport until some time back, why would it have only a 20T AABS system..? Shouldn't it have all infra good enough for much larger jets..?? Even Su30MKI Fly from here all the time. 20T system is clearly not good enough for Su30MKI.
Indranil
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Indranil »

Confusion between weight and mass?
chetak
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by chetak »

JayS wrote:Whether 20T or 40T, max energy absorption capability of 13.5 MJ sounds ridiculous. That's bared 10 or 20% of the total KE based on which weight category we are talking about. Something looks amiss.

Given HAL was a full fledged Civil Airport until some time back, why would it have only a 20T AABS system..? Shouldn't it have all infra good enough for much larger jets..?? Even Su30MKI Fly from here all the time. 20T system is clearly not good enough for Su30MKI.
HAL is still a full fledged civil airport, retaining much of the original infrastructure and facilities. It handles a lot of military flights as well as civil cargo flights with the heavies.
Hari Nair
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Hari Nair »

rrao wrote:its quite bizarre ,we could not locate the wreckage of An-32 so far with all the cartosat,Risat and other sensors of su-30mki and UAVs in hand. How can a plane disappear so all of a sudden with out a mayday call !!! …….could it be a SAM attack? or EW attack? Very sad to note !!!!
Is it really bizarre? The area in question is a high mountainous rain forest with trees growing to 30-50 m, has thick green canopy that is a continuous multi-layered green cover. I remember on certain occasions (cutting across valleys), flying for over an hour in that sector without spotting a single hutment or sign of human habitation - just an ocean of dark rolling green mountains interspersed with snow peaks . Human habitation is restricted to valleys and the lower reaches of the mountains. Our Army and Assam Rifles colleagues used to tell us stories of their long treks to the forward posts - its impossible to venture outside the trail - the undergrowth is so thick, with insects, leeches, snakes and the rest of them all.

An aircraft, even the size of the An-32 can easily be swallowed up in the green canopy and even if a search helicopter is 1 km away, the crew on-board may miss the faint signs of wreckage. Give the rain forest about 3-4 maybe six months, the wreckage may be impossible to locate. Some of the valleys close into a sudden dead end with menacing peaks that surround an aircraft through 180 degrees. Enter those valleys through a single error in navigation at a lower altitude and the aircraft is effectively trapped in that bowl without space to turn and escape. Add highly unpredictable weather and violent thunderstorms with micro-bursts and squalls in this season to all that. One needs to go there and operate to feel the powerful and raw forces of nature - its a very humbling experience. All our tech and capabilities are nice back in civilisation - but out there, there are very visible limitations to our tech and its a very different game!
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by rrao »

IR sirji, non upgraded an-32 has GPWS with voice warning and PRIMUS-500 WR. GPWS coupled to airdata computer for baro altitude !!!Both are from sunstrand corp...
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Hari Nair »

rrao wrote:IR sirji, non upgraded an-32 has GPWS with voice warning and PRIMUS-500 WR. GPWS coupled to airdata computer for baro altitude !!!Both are from sunstrand corp...
Yes, indeed it has all of those. Each of those systems has its capabilities and limitations. Which brings me back to my post earlier describing the sector....
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by vcsekhar »

ramana wrote:vcshekar, Do you guys temper the solder in oil bath to relieve stresses in solder?
Are you familiar with David Pinsky algorithm for tin whisker formation?
1. I did not remember Pinskey but I do remember reviewing such research at the time we were changing over to an RoHS process for all our exports.
2. We do not need to stress relieve the solder in oil baths as that is not meant for our components. When we had initially done our testing we found that some types of tin plating was worse than others so we standardized on a high quality supplier of the plated material from Japan.

3. Most of our testing and study was completed in the 2004 to 2006 time frame after which no changes were made, however, since we are component makers our studies only cover our products and our customers do the board level testing to check for whisker growth after making a board which includes our components. In any case most of our products are high power/high voltage where the boards are not high density configurations.
cheers..
JayS
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by JayS »

Looks like wreckage is found, One reporter said on Twitter. We may see some announcement in some time.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by mmasand »

IAF MCC: The wreckage of the missing #An32 was spotted today 16 Kms North of Lipo, North East of Tato at an approximate elevation of 12000 ft by the #IAF Mi-17 Helicopter undertaking search in the expanded search zone.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by JTull »

Hope we find some survivors.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Rishi_Tri »

Hari Nair wrote:
rrao wrote:its quite bizarre ,we could not locate the wreckage of An-32 so far with all the cartosat,Risat and other sensors of su-30mki and UAVs in hand. How can a plane disappear so all of a sudden with out a mayday call !!! …….could it be a SAM attack? or EW attack? Very sad to note !!!!
Is it really bizarre? The area in question is a high mountainous rain forest with trees growing to 30-50 m, has thick green canopy that is a continuous multi-layered green cover. I remember on certain occasions (cutting across valleys), flying for over an hour in that sector without spotting a single hutment or sign of human habitation - just an ocean of dark rolling green mountains interspersed with snow peaks . Human habitation is restricted to valleys and the lower reaches of the mountains. Our Army and Assam Rifles colleagues used to tell us stories of their long treks to the forward posts - its impossible to venture outside the trail - the undergrowth is so thick, with insects, leeches, snakes and the rest of them all.

An aircraft, even the size of the An-32 can easily be swallowed up in the green canopy and even if a search helicopter is 1 km away, the crew on-board may miss the faint signs of wreckage. Give the rain forest about 3-4 maybe six months, the wreckage may be impossible to locate. Some of the valleys close into a sudden dead end with menacing peaks that surround an aircraft through 180 degrees. Enter those valleys through a single error in navigation at a lower altitude and the aircraft is effectively trapped in that bowl without space to turn and escape. Add highly unpredictable weather and violent thunderstorms with micro-bursts and squalls in this season to all that. One needs to go there and operate to feel the powerful and raw forces of nature - its a very humbling experience. All our tech and capabilities are nice back in civilisation - but out there, there are very visible limitations to our tech and its a very different game!
Absolutely true. Arunachal is still very virgin and literally the last frontier. It still takes up to a week to trek to some locations.

To add - weather starts getting very bad in Arunachal beginning May and continues to be so till end of September. Especially so in afternoon and this aircraft was flying in afternoon. Afternoon in Arunachal is more like late evening given the real time difference of close to two hours from IST. It is peak time for storms and bad weather. In fact it is considered prudent practice not to fly beginning early afternoon during this season. Very often aircraft take off from different bases in Assam, circle over Tuting, Mechuka, find weather not good and return. True for all kinds of aircraft.

IAF shall find the real reasons. Homage to The Brave.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by sajaym »

Would it be useful to have a digital map of India, with crash sites and the routes taken by the ill-fated aircraft to those crash sites, along with date and time of crash and prevailing weather conditions? And then have this map shared with other flight crews, so that they can make better decisions while flying through the areas where previously crashes have happened? I'm sure the normal training and pre-flight briefings already cover this aspect, but it would still be useful to have this data available to the flight crew in-flight also.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Singha »

if it crashed 16km north of lipo, it was off the line to mechuka the destination which is along a valley to west of lip.
maybe it was avoiding some storm cell and trying to work around.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mechu ... d94.124275

nobody lives in those rugged mountains, and even the valleys are uninhabited north of lipo.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Singha »

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mechu ... d94.124275

jorhat afb. transport command base. you can see expansion work going on at one end of the runway. and lots of radar and missile trucks. what is labelled as chiki miki pg are the protected munition storage bunkers. similar large troops of comms/missile trucks are seen in guwahati also in areas off the parallel taxiway on military side.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Hari Nair »

Singha wrote:if it crashed 16km north of lipo, it was off the line to mechuka the destination which is along a valley to west of lip.
maybe it was avoiding some storm cell and trying to work around...….
Yes, it possibly looks like CFIT whilst negotiating weather. RIP Brave Air Warriors! I lost my course-mate in the near vicinity in the mountains just north - CFIT in an An-32 in the late 80s - they also were inbound to Mechuka.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Sid »

Hari Nair wrote:
Singha wrote:if it crashed 16km north of lipo, it was off the line to mechuka the destination which is along a valley to west of lip.
maybe it was avoiding some storm cell and trying to work around...….
Yes, it possibly looks like CFIT whilst negotiating weather. RIP Brave Air Warriors! I lost my course-mate in the near vicinity in the mountains just north - CFIT in an An-32 in the late 80s - they also were inbound to Mechuka.
If I may ask a basic question (apologies as I am not aware of this point), why IAF flights have to follow mountain terrain in such areas. Considering how treacherous the flight path in those valleys, why it's a must to fly through them and not over them.

Is it hard to achieve altitude there, or is it done primarily to mask their flight path in mountain terrain?
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Hari Nair »

Sid wrote:
Hari Nair wrote:
Yes, it possibly looks like CFIT whilst negotiating weather. RIP Brave Air Warriors! I lost my course-mate in the near vicinity in the mountains just north - CFIT in an An-32 in the late 80s - they also were inbound to Mechuka.
If I may ask a basic question (apologies as I am not aware of this point), why IAF flights have to follow mountain terrain in such areas. Considering how treacherous the flight path in those valleys, why it's a must to fly through them and not over them.

Is it hard to achieve altitude there, or is it done primarily to mask their flight path in mountain terrain?
The objective is to land at Mechuka Advanced Landing Ground (ALG). The landing strip is at an elevation of about 6000 feet. The procedure is to come at an appropriate altitude ensuring terrain clearance till a designated reporting point, thereafter descend in the valley so as to place the aircraft at an appropriate point in space (altitude and ground position) suited to make the approach to land. If too high, then the aircraft cannot make the approach to land. ALGs sometimes have a single direction of approach (cannot land from the reciprocal direction). The crew usually fly the descent and final stages visually keeping clear of the terrain.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Prasad »

Look at the terrain and vegetation at the crash site
https://twitter.com/delhidefence/status ... 9425376258
chetak
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by chetak »

twitter
These are 13 IAF men on board An-32 Tail No.K2752. Spare a thought for the 13 families spending sleepless nights in Jorhat, waiting for closure and clarity.

Image
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by JTull »

Reports that there were no survivors. Om shanti!
Condolences to the families of bravehearts.
JayS
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by JayS »

Check the crash site picture from this tweet. Looks like the plane fell short by a bit off altitude while clearing a peak and ended up with CFIT. Very unfortunate.

https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1138755008139161600

Image
chetak
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by chetak »

this is a mountainous region beset with rapidly changing climatic and visibility conditions, not to mention vicious updrafts and downdrafts.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by vasu raya »

Seems like IAF is pinning its hopes on the C-295 as replacement to the An-32's, the weather isn't going to be different, does the C-295 have more power margin? if so, can it perform assault landings, perhaps suitable for landing on airstrips in the bowls of the mountains?
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by titash »

Most likely the following reasons:
- better avionics, digital glass cockpit, better information delivered to the points i.e. Situational Awareness

- lower power but more reliable engines...I think this P&W turboprop had 80% marketshare. This also translates to better supply chain and Better Uptime

- FADEC, BITE, training simulators, maintenance simulators, and general instrumentation that enables faster diagnosis of engine failures, and predictive maintenance capabilities. Basically improved safety.

It's really the same as my 1980s Fiat with no OBDII diagnostics and no music system versus my 2010 Camry with OBDII, GPS, Bluetooth integration, power windows, rear view camera, etc.

vasu raya wrote:Seems like IAF is pinning its hopes on the C-295 as replacement to the An-32's, the weather isn't going to be different, does the C-295 have more power margin? if so, can it perform assault landings, perhaps suitable for landing on airstrips in the bowls of the mountains?
JTull
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by JTull »

One must look beyond this accident. How many incident-free sorties were flown by other IAF, IA and IN assets in the area to locate the crashsite? Probably hundreds.

The location and weather were still the same!

Many of the shortcomings of An-32 have been addressed in the upgraded version. They just need upgrade more rapidly. Bird in hand is better than two... C295 order has not even been placed yet. It'll be several years before they arrive in numbers.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by rrao »

c-295 was developed by nurtanio of indonesia by one Habibi who came from MD, if i am not wrong.Mr.Habibi later became a minister in indonesia!! Indonesia is not known for their aircraft design and manufacturing skills!!!
chetak
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by chetak »

Are we really expected to buy this

whatever happened to stabilizing the aircraft first or just going around, if not fully set up either for the letdown or the landing

why put so much of unnecessary load on the co-pilot and finally what was the captain doing during all this drama that he couldn't stick to set procedures and how did he completely miss the three bright green lights.

the higher the workload, the more careful one becomes and the explanation is not just "luckily, the aircraft was not damaged beyond a certain limit, nor did it catch fire."

Really, The aircraft duly completed its mission but also created history when it made a ‘belly landing’ because the landing gear had not been lowered.

One would have thought that the mission was complete when the aircraft returned to base in a fit condition to routinely take off again.




When an AN-32 did a ‘belly landing’ because pilots ‘forgot to lower landing gear’





When an AN-32 did a ‘belly landing’ because pilots ‘forgot to lower landing gear’

IAF flying veterans say the incident illustrates that the treacherous flying conditions in the North East can so engage the attention of an aircraft crew that even the most obvious task could slip out of the mind as the pilots wrestle to complete their mission.



Man Aman Singh Chhina | Chandigarh | June 14, 2019 11:17:31 am


The ‘belly landing’ incident’s Court of Inquiry was done by Air Commodore GS Brar (retd)

On April 17, 1987, an AN-32 aircraft took off from Jorhat Air Force Station for a supply mission to Mechuka Advanced Landing Ground (ALG). The aircraft duly completed its mission but also created history when it made a ‘belly landing’ because the landing gear had not been lowered.


IAF flying veterans say the incident illustrates that the treacherous flying conditions in the North East can so engage the attention of an aircraft crew that even the most obvious task could slip out of the mind as the pilots wrestle to complete their mission. The ‘belly landing’ incident’s Court of Inquiry was done by Air Commodore GS Brar (retd), now settled in Panchkula, who was the first CO of the AN-32 Squadron in the North East. As commanding officer, he converted 43 Squadron from Dakotas to AN-32 in 1986 in Jorhat.

The aircraft in question belonged to the 49 Squadron, also located in Jorhat. Another veteran IAF officer who was familiar with the incident, but did not want to be named, said that the ALG at Mechuka had undergone repairs and that the sortie had been undertaken to see if it was good enough to conduct a landing.

“The AN-32 carried supplies which had to be para-dropped just ahead of Mechuka and a senior officer of the Jorhat Air Force Wing was the pilot in command. After the drop, the officer directed the co-pilot to conduct a landing straightaway as the aircraft was aligned to the ALG, without doing a circuit. None conducted the landing check list,” the officer recounted.


The co-pilot got busy ensuring that the ramp of the aircraft was shut after the para-drop as well as lining the aircraft for short finals (the final approach to landing) on the instructions of the senior officer. “Nobody realised that the landing gear had not been lowered. The Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) later revealed that an alarm had been sounded saying ‘terrain terrain’ warning the crew that the aircraft was dangerously close to the ground. This would not have sounded had the gear been down. There were also directions to ‘pull up’, which were also ignored and the realisation that the landing gear had not been lowered dawned only when the AN-32 was skidding down the runway on its belly,” he said.


Air Commodore Brar told The Indian Express that luckily, the aircraft was not damaged beyond a certain limit, nor did it catch fire. Minor repairs were made locally at Mechuka by flying in technicians and since the landing gear was intact in the undercarriage bay the aircraft was raised and the landing gear lowered. “It was then flown back to Jorhat from Mechuka bay another crew with its landing gear in ‘down’ position,” he said.

The aircraft as then sent to Kanpur Base Repair Depot of the IAF for repairs where it landed safely but its nosewheel collapsed while being towed.

Following the detailed inquiry, disciplinary action had been taken against the senior officer who had been held responsible for the mistake, he said.

Referring to the accident of AN-32 in which 13 IAF personnel have lost their lives, Air Commodore Brar said that only a detailed investigation would reveal the exact cause of the accident. “The weather is most unpredictable in those parts of the country. Only the person who is in that situation can decide on the course of action. Instructions are clear that you will not enter bad weather,” he said
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by rrao »

AN-32 un upgraded version i believe has GPWS, Air data computer and Radio Altimeter. Airdata computer provides barrow altitude to GPWS(HOneywell?) . GPWS has synthesized voice warning system. Not sure whether GPWS takes input from Radio Altimeter or not. The radio Altimeter works for 1500 meters above terrain only and above that, altitude may be invalidated and pilot has to rely on barrow altittude. As per google data , Jorhat is at 300 feet MSL and Mechuka is at 6000 feet MSL.Youtube videos shows weather around mechuka is very fiery and cloudy fully surrouned by steep valleys an hills.!!!! Any aircraft with out GPWS,TAWS, high altitude radio altimeter,ELT should not be allowed to fly in this route.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by nachiket »

rrao wrote:AN-32 un upgraded version i believe has GPWS, Air data computer and Radio Altimeter. Airdata computer provides barrow altitude to GPWS(HOneywell?) . GPWS has synthesized voice warning system. Not sure whether GPWS takes input from Radio Altimeter or not. The radio Altimeter works for 1500 meters above terrain only and above that, altitude may be invalidated and pilot has to rely on barrow altittude. As per google data , Jorhat is at 300 feet MSL and Mechuka is at 6000 feet MSL.Youtube videos shows weather around mechuka is very fiery and cloudy fully surrouned by steep valleys an hills.!!!! Any aircraft with out GPWS,TAWS, high altitude radio altimeter,ELT should not be allowed to fly in this route.
I'm not aware of the un-upgraded AN-32 having GPWS, but even if it did, the older GPWS had its limitations. It could only monitor and warn the pilots about terrain directly beneath the aircraft. In areas with high mountains where the ground can rise very quickly, this system is inadequate because the pilots may not have enough time to react after they receive a warning and ensure that the aircraft can climb quickly to avoid slamming into a steep mountainside. In fact the pictures of the crash site suggest this is what happened. The pilots were trying to gain altitude quickly to fly over the ridge but they did not have enough time, which is why the aircraft seems to have impacted in an upward trajectory. Whether the pilots were made aware of the terrain by the GPWS or their own eyes is not known yet.

In civilian aircraft GPWS has been replaced by EGPWS which uses GPS and an extensive terrain database to figure out where the aircraft is located and whether it is in danger of flying into any terrain nearby. It provides advance warning of terrain and gives pilots more time to take corrective measures.

However, even with modern navigation aids along with the EGPWS there still have been CFIT crashes in the civilian world because of pilot error along with other factors. In an area like Arunachal with high mountains, unpredictable weather and high altitude landing grounds with little to no approach aids (ILS, glideslope, VOR-DME etc. which may not work well because of the mountainous terrain even if they had been there), the margin of error is extremely low. Civilian pilots have crashed their aircraft in less demanding environments. Military pilots are also not superhuman and there will always be a significant amount of risk flying in these areas.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Ashokk »

How locals beat tech to locate missing AN-32
GUWAHATI: When the Indian Air Force's AN-32 flying to Mechuka in the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh went off the radar on June 3, security forces immediately knew what they were up against. The search operation would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Technology alone just wouldn’t be enough -- not for rescue and neither for retrieval.
A day after that, T Yubi, a man known in his village of Kaying as "local Tarzan", offered to go look for the aircraft. Yubi, in his 40s, is adept at traditional hunting and fishing and knows every inch of the Bayor mountain range in his village. Hence, the name. “We gave Yubi 15 kg rice and other essentials. He set out to find the aircraft on foot, all by himself, the same day (June 4),” said Pumek Ronya, extra assistant commissioner of Kaying circle in the Siang district.

The Mechuka Valley is surrounded by snowcapped mountains and is barely 29km from the McMahon Line that separates India and China. AN-32s are routinely employed to carry essential commodities for security forces deployed in forward posts and the few hundred who inhabit Mechuka. The one that crashed on June 3, killing all 13 IAF personnel inside, had gone missing somewhere in the mountains that straddle the Siang, West Siang and Shi Yomi districts in northern Arunachal.
The IAF used helicopters, aircraft equipped with advanced sensors and Isro satellite images to look for the missing AN-32. But zeroing in on the crash site was not going to be easy.

Flying over the Arunachal airspace – with its constantly changing “micro-climates”, unpredictable air currents and inconsistent visibility – has always been a challenge. As has been looking for aircraft that have been unable to negotiate The Hump, the notorious air route over Assam-Arunachal-Myanmar-China. The geography resists accurate mapping, the routes are infested with venomous snakes and unpredictable rain makes the terrain even more treacherous. The forests of the undivided Siang district are home to Malayan Sun bears, Himalayan brown bears, marbled cats, golden cats and clouded leopards.

We gave Yubi 15 kg rice and other essentials. He set out to find the aircraft on foot, all by himself, the same day (June 4)
Pumek Ronya, extra assistant commissioner of Kaying circle, Siang district
Most would be daunted. Not Yubi. A member of the Adi community, an isolated hill tribe living across six districts of Arunachal, Yubi's people are primarily rice cultivators. Adi men are traditional hunters, killing everything from small animals, birds, beetles to rodents. They also breed the semi-domesticated bovine Mithun, an animal Yubi was especially adept at handling. What this adds up to is a connect with the terrain and fauna that is essential to moving around in the uncharted mountainous territory.

“We realised we have to mobilise local teams to back him up. We enrolled residents of the Kaying and Payum circles and set up two teams of local hunters to locate the AN-32 in the Bayor range,” Rajiv Takuk, deputy commissioner of Siang, said. The district has a forest cover of 15,309 sq km, or 82.67% of the geographical area.
On June 6, another five-member team of locals was sent from Reying, also in Siang, to join the search. Two days later, yet another team of four police personnel and two locals was sent to help Yubi. This was followed by another team of Army personnel and two locals.

“Meanwhile, a villager from Payum, Tadut Tasung, came to Kaying on June 7, saying he had earlier spotted the aircraft moving towards the Tuting-Loyer range. It takes a day to go from Payum to Kaying on foot. There is no other way to cover the stretch. But he had come all the way,” Ronya said. The extra assistant commissioner is a trained surveyor himself with thorough cartographic knowledge of the terrain. “This bit of information gave us new direction. Before that, we had been looking along the right bank of the Siyom river that flows through Siang from north to south. Payum is on the left bank of the river. If Tasung had seen the aircraft at Payum, we had to start looking on the left bank. We checked with locals at Payum. They all had the same thing to say,” he added.
Following this, the district administration roped in two local mountaineers who had climbed the Mount Everest last year, Taka Tamut and Kishon Tekseng. “They were given a team of other trained mountaineers and nine Agency Local Corps (ALC) mountaineers to expand the search to the left bank,” Ronya said. ALC mountaineers are porters who carry loads to remote locations not accessible by roads.

We realised we have to mobilise local teams to back him up. We enrolled residents of the Kaying and Payum circles and set up two teams of local hunters to locate the AN-32 in the Bayor range
Rajiv Takuk, deputy commissioner, Siang, Arunachal Pradesh
The ground search teams of locals, meanwhile, kept updating the IAF and the Army. These inputs were forwarded to Somar Patom, deputy director of the Arunachal Pradesh Energy Development Agency and an avid mountaineer. Patom is based at the advanced landing ground at Aalo in West Siang and was in constant touch with the IAF, giving them the coordinates provided by the civil administration based on what the local search teams found and learnt on the ground.
Back at Payum, Tamut and Tekseng spoke to villagers, who told them the aircraft appeared to be headed over Gaseng village, a two-day foot march from Payum. So they set out for Gaseng on June 9. “Villagers at Gaseng told them that they had seen the aircraft taking a left turn, which is towards a mountain range called Pari Adi. On June 11, they started the ascent. An IAF chopper arrived and airlifted the mountaineers and, finally, the crash site was located,” Ronya said. The wreckage was spotted about 16km north of Lipo – about 70km from Mechuka – the direction the locals had been pointing to.

This is not the first time local knowledge proved indispensable to a search operation. In 2011, when Arunachal CM Dorjee Khandu’s chopper went missing, it was a group of nomadic yak herders who found the wreckage at Luguthang, about 15,000 feet above sea level, after six days of aerial surveys had yielded nothing.
Yubi, meanwhile, is yet to return. Most parts of the state do not have mobile or internet connectivity, primarily because of the terrain. While the administration is certain the sure-footed hunter will make his way back, there has been no word from him yet.
Indranil
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Indranil »

I am not sure how a C295 would be better than the AN-32 in that area. I don't know if we can fault AN-32 for the risks of flying in that region. Does the C295 have a way to decrease the disorientation of pilots in low visibility conditions in a region with micro-climates?
ramana
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ramana »

While the AN-32 crash has gripped our attention we need to focus back on the M2K crash and its root cause.
rrao
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by rrao »

Terrain avoidance and warning system. some info in the following link
https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Ter ... tem_(TAWS).

The system should warn, presence of an obstacle/terrain at least 10 nm before hand.primus 500 weather radar has a beacon mode, where ground beacons provide info regarding their location for way-point navigation. These are not active in india i tihink.....
chetak
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by chetak »

rrao wrote:Terrain avoidance and warning system. some info in the following link
https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Ter ... tem_(TAWS).

The system should warn, presence of an obstacle/terrain at least 10 nm before hand.primus 500 weather radar has a beacon mode, where ground beacons provide info regarding their location for way-point navigation. These are not active in india i tihink.....

Saar, any idea as to how far the aircraft was from its actual destination when it went down.
Singha
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Singha »

Also c130 sf models we purchased have flir
also the c130 has terrain collision avoidance system
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/artic ... ng-392245/
https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/12 ... tems-0720/

we had tried to skimp on it, but crawled back after one crash

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... s?from=mdr

NEW DELHI: The Indian Air Force is to equip its new fleet of six C-130J Hercules aircraft with Terrain Awareness Warning System (TAWS), shows a solicitation posted by the US Air Force on the US Federal Business Opportunities website.

The contract will be for 40 months starting from May 31, 2017 and the last date of submission of response is by 4 PM, March 30.

"The United States Air Force, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, C-130J Division, Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio is see ..

Read more at:
//economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/57686278.cms?from=mdr&utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
rrao
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by rrao »

chetak wrote:
rrao wrote:Terrain avoidance and warning system. some info in the following link
https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Ter ... tem_(TAWS).

The system should warn, presence of an obstacle/terrain at least 10 nm before hand.primus 500 weather radar has a beacon mode, where ground beacons provide info regarding their location for way-point navigation. These are not active in india i tihink.....

Saar, any idea as to how far the aircraft was from its actual destination when it went down.
Saar,.. the wreckage of the aircraft was found near Pari hills close to Gatte village, 16 km north of Lipo in Arunachal Pradesh, at 12,000 feet elevation as per wiki. Lipo in Arunachal Pradesh on Tuesday, an air force statement said. ... Its wreckage was spotted around 69km (road distance) from Mechuka.
...
Singha
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Singha »

after learning things the hard way after decades of logistical air ops in all parts of the world - deserts, extreme cold, salt water , mountains i guess the usaf does not anymore skimp on protective and preventative kit for its vast logistical fleet despite the added cost and these being "silent" back end stuff not the shiny teeth.
in vietnam era they were operating things like Hueys and transports with chewing gum and duct tape...
ArjunPandit
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by ArjunPandit »

one question, wouldnt cruise missile style terrain mapping work, with modification of course, in this case as well? Not sure if something from b'mos or nirbhay can be taken here and applied at least on fixed routes that IAF takes most of the times. Stopping flights is the easiest way. Wonder if IAF/DRDO and working on something.
Singha
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Singha »

the c130 tcas or any tcas for that matter needs terrain maps - it is offered as a subscription system from OEM but perhaps users can also use their own maps - our Cartosat type sats have already prepared detailed terrain and radar clutter maps all over india for the AWACS to use. this is said to be mandatory for effective use of awacs.
JayS
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by JayS »

ArjunPandit wrote:one question, wouldnt cruise missile style terrain mapping work, with modification of course, in this case as well? Not sure if something from b'mos or nirbhay can be taken here and applied at least on fixed routes that IAF takes most of the times. Stopping flights is the easiest way. Wonder if IAF/DRDO and working on something.
I was thinking about the same, given our solid capability in terrain mapping, we should have good enough high res terrain maps of entire India, or should be in a situation to generate the same, if not already available. With the terrain maps and INS-GPS/IRNSS integration, a crash warning system should be feasible.
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