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IAF close to clinching AJT deal

Josy Joseph in New Delhi

After a delay of more than a decade, the Indian Air Force is set to clinch a huge deal for advanced jet trainers. According to available indications, British Aerospace, which manufactures the Hawk AJT, will win the contract.

The IAF lost 147 aircraft and 63 pilots in the period 1991-97. The lack of an AJT has been cited as a major reason for this high accident rate. The jet trainers give pilots crucial flying experience before they begin to undertake actual missions.

After dragging its feet for more than 14 years, during which the IAF's accident rate shot up to dangerous levels, the government has finally begun negotiations to clinch the deal. Air Chief Marshal Anil Yashwant Tipnis said on Tuesday, "We have reached the final stages (of the negotiation)."

Reliable IAF sources indicated that the contract, one of the biggest defence deals in recent history, could be signed "sometime in early 2000".

The Hawk, which is already in production and being used by some air forces, seems to be the frontrunner now. Earlier, the French Dassault was also in the race, but seems to have lost out since it stopped production of its Alpha jet trainer about five years ago.

The IAF is also believed to have ruled out the Russian MiG-AT trainer, mainly because it is still being developed and the IAF cannot wait any longer.

Target acquisition, a key problem area for the IAF in its operations, especially in the recent Kargil conflict, will improve greatly once pilots get trained on the AJT, air force officials said.

The AJTs, which will provide the crucial final stage of training for fighter pilots, will also help cut down the IAF's accident rate. Air Chief Marshal Tipnis told his commanders last week during the military conference in New Delhi to improve their flying records, and admitted that reducing accident rates is a key area of concern.

The IAF has lost at least 20 fighters this year alone, most of them MiG-21s flown by young flying officers just out of the academy.

It was 14 years ago that the proposal to buy an AJT was first made, but bureaucratic delays have scuttled it all this while, though several parliamentary standing committees, a special audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General, and several other authorities have criticised the delay.

During the twelfth Lok Sabha, a report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence had pointed out the urgent need for an AJT and pulled the government up for delaying the purchase.

In the last eight years, the IAF has lost more than 190 aircraft - most of them being MiG-21 variants. While there is an urgent need to upgrade the MiG-21 fleet - of the 32 MiG squadrons in the IAF, 16 comprise MIG-21 variants - the sources said the lack of an AJT complicates matters.

In a statement in March 1999, Defence Minister George Fernandes said that of the 37 Indian Air Force plane crashes since January 1997, 15 were due to technical defects while 12 were caused by human error. In three cases, both factors had combined to spell doom.

Two of the accidents caused by human error were during training on the Kiran Mk-1A. But in nine cases it was pure human error on the part of trained pilots.

The high rate of human error cannot be ignored, and points to the lack of proper training on an AJT. Right now, from a Kiran, the young pilots jump directly into the supersonic MiGs.

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