IAF plan to cut accident rate paying off

The Indian Air Force's efforts to bring down its accident rate appear to be paying off.

That the IAF's efforts on this count have paid dividends is evident from the significantly reduced accident rate in the past 18 months, in spite of a hefty increase in the flying hours on the force's fighter, transport and helicopter fleets.

According to the latest statistics, as compared to 25 and 28 IAF aircraft lost in crashes during 1994-95 and 1995-96, the force lost 20 aircraft in 1996-97 and six aircraft so far this year. The accidents mainly involve fighter and trainer aircraft.

The accident rate in the IAF threatened to snowball into a major controversy as 100 aircraft have been destroyed since April 1993. The IAF suffered a loss of Rs 8 billion as a result of these accidents -- 58 fighter aircraft alone were lost at a cost of Rs 6.12 billion.

Even more unfortunate was the loss of 47 IAF crew members, including 30 pilots, in the accidents.

Human error, technical defects and bird hits have been identified as the causes of the accidents.

The significant down trend in accidents has been achieved following a review of the air support and attack patterns, taking into consideration tactical conditions and aircraft performance. Besides, the manufacturers have been closely associated to avoid recurrence of technical defects.

Steps have also been taken by the ministries of agriculture and urban affairs and the state governments concerned for modernisation of slaughter houses and carcass utilisation centres and for sanitisation of areas around airfields to reduce bird activity.

The committee on fighter aircraft accidents -- constituted under the chairmanship of Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, scientific advisor to the defence minister, to analyse the causes of these accidents and to suggest remedial measures to avoid their recurrence -- will submit its report shortly.

Approximately, Rs 56.8 million, Rs 24.8 million and Rs 16.8 million is spent on training a pilot from the fighter, transport and the helicopter streams.

The Denis La Fontaine committee, constituted in 1982, analysed 213 accidents of different categories which occurred during 1977-82 and carried out in depth studies into various operational and training aspects. The committee made recommendations covering major areas like training plan for various IAF personnel, establishment of a technical training school and inspectorate directorate among other things. The official position is that action on most of the committee's recommendations has been completed.

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