The plan to phase out the Soviet-origin aircraft fleet is part of the IAF's modernisation drive and it is not related to the latest crash of a MiG-21 jet in Rajasthan's Barmer on Thursday night.
The passengers aboard the helicopter are reported to be five Mexican nationals, whose identities have yet to be disclosed and pilot senior captain Chet B Gurung, the Himalayan Times newspaper reported
The accident occurred at 7:45 pm while the pilot was attempting to land the B737 Air India Express from Dubai at the tabletop runway of the Karipur International Airport.
The Tibet-bound plane was carrying 113 passengers and nine crew members, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Are faulty design, hurried construction and private ownership to be blamed for the incidents of airport roofs crashing?
Here's a round up of some information the nation learnt from Parliament on Tuesday.
Jet Airways has complained to India's aviation regulator about the use of its livery on SpiceJet aircraft, saying the practice could "mislead the public" and is a safety hazard. Jet collapsed in 2019 and lessors repossessed its Boeing 737s. Some of these aircraft were leased to SpiceJet, which operates them without changing the livery. Jet, which is now being revived by the Kalrock Jalan consortium and aims to restart operations in September, has asked the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to ask SpiceJet to stop using its livery.
The PIA plane PK-661 with 48 people, including famous pop singer-turned-Islamic preacher Junaid Jamshed, his wife and Deputy Commissioner Chitral Osama Warraich, on board crashed on Wednesday in Saddha Batolni village near Havelian while en route to Islamabad from Chitral in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
Instead of lowering the altitude, the pilot responded by saying that he was satisfied. When only 10 nautical miles were left till the airport, the plane was at an altitude of 7,000 feet instead of 3,000 feet, it said. The ATC issued a second warning to the pilot to lower the plane's altitude. However, the pilot responded again by stating that he was satisfied and would handle the situation, saying he was ready for landing, the report said.
Group Captain Varun Singh, the lone survivor in the horrifying chopper crash near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu, was conferred with the Shaurya Chakra in August for averting a possible mid-air accident after his Tejas light combat aircraft suffered a major technical glitch last year.
The death toll in the Uttarkashi bus accident rose to 26 with the recovery of one more body after which the search and rescue operation was concluded, officials said on Monday.
The incident occurred during "America's Premier World War II Airshow," which was reportedly Veterans Day weekend, where guests were to see more than 40 World War II-era aircraft.
French aviation watchdog BEA said vertical separation between the two aircraft 'was zero feet' while the least horizontal separation between the two planes was reduced to just 0.6 NM.
'...and then get scaled down somewhat.' 'It will be difficult for any side to occupy meaningful territories, maybe just a bit here and there, and the destruction may vary on either side.'
The black box, comprising the flight data recorder (FDR) and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), of the ill-fated Mi-17V5 helicopter of the Indian Air Force was recovered from the crash site on Thursday.
With the plane experiencing problems one after another, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said there were no safety issues and the faults would be worked out.
The pilot killed in action was Wing Commander Harshit Sinha, the Indian Air Force (IAF) said.
There is no reason for keeping an entire ministry with a total staff strength of 2,300, just for the oversight of a few aviation sector laws and regulatory bodies, notes A K Bhattacharya.
'Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) of the ill-fated aircraft have been retrieved. AAIB (Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau) is conducting investigations,' Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted, as fresh questions were raised on the safety parameters of the runway.
Neither the BJP, nor the Congress before it, made any manifesto commitments on defence spending, even though allocations have plummeted from 4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the late 1980s to less than 2 per cent today, points out Ajai Shukla.
Now it is confirmed that all 22 people, including four Indian nationals and three crew members, have been killed in the tragedy.
Rescuers on Monday recovered 20 bodies from the wreckage site of the Tara Air plane that crashed in Nepal's mountainous Mustang district on Sunday with 22 people on board, including four Indians, minutes after taking off from the tourist city of Pokhara, officials said.
Preliminary investigation revealed that the aircraft had crashed into the mountains after it swerved to the right, instead of turning to the left due to inclement weather.
A video apparently shot by one of the five Indian passengers on board the aircraft that plunged into a gorge in Pokhara on Sunday captures the horrific moments of the crash that killed 72 people.
Two pilots on board a Cheetah helicopter of the Army were killed when it crashed near Mandala in West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh on Thursday morning, a defence spokesperson said.
He also assured the kin of victims that steps would be taken to get them compensation in line with an international convention of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). Taking stock of the crash of the Dubai-Kozhikode AIE flight in Kozhikode and the relief measures, the minister said pilot in-command of the plane, Captain Deepak Vasant Sathe, among those killed in the accident, was one of the most experienced commanders with more than 10,000 flying hours.
According to an air traffic controller at Jomsom Airport, they was an unconfirmed report about a loud noise reported in the Ghasa region of Jomsom, according to the Post report.
Four Army personnel were killed and one was reported missing after the twin-engine weapon system integrated (WSI) version of the indigenously-built helicopter went down at Migging village in Upper Siang district of the border state at 10.43 am on Friday.
After the accident on Friday, Virudhunagar MP Manickam Tagore, Ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor alleged on Twitter that there were safety lapses on the part of the civil aviation ministry.
Runway 34 is a clumsy cocktail of Hollywood movies spiked with the Bollywood brand of God complex, sighs Sukanya Verma.
The advanced light helicopter (ALH), carrying five Army personnel including two pilots, was on regular sorties when it crashed at 10.43 am on Friday near Migging, around 25 km south of Tuting, he said.
Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari and Air Marshal Manvendra Singh who headed the tri-service investigation into the crash apprised Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on the findings of the probe on Wednesday.
Air India, under its new Tata management, has taken a Rs 60,800 crore ($8 billion) cover by paying Rs 266 crore premium to a clutch of insurance companies, including Tata AIG General Insurance. The airline managed to get a better deal as it valued its fleet lower by almost $2 billion. The new management held extensive negotiations - both in India and London, to get a good deal considering the rising premiums due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
An IAF spokesperson said the MiG-29 aircraft was on a training mission. "The aircraft had developed a technical snag and the pilot ejected safely as he was unable to control the aircraft," he said.
Flight Lieutenant Adivitiya Bal was killed in the line of duty along with Wing Commander Mohit Rana in last week's MiG-21 crash in Barmer. His school in Nagrota, Jammu, gave a final salute to a worthy ex-student.
Dramatic visuals showed fidgety people inside the cable cars that hung in air against the backdrop of a rocky hill cliff that overlooked a densely-forested valley.
A Srinagar-bound SpiceJet aircraft with 186 passengers on board landed under emergency conditions in New Delhi on Monday after Air Traffic Control learnt that it had suffered a tyre burst while taking off and asked it to return
A Srinagar-bound SpiceJet aircraft with 186 passengers on board landed under emergency conditions in New Delhi on Monday after Air Traffic Control learnt that it had suffered a tyre burst while taking off and asked it to return
The Nepal government signed a $215.96 million soft loan agreement with China in March 2016 for the construction of the airport in this tourist hub.
'The accident was a result of entry into clouds due to unexpected change in weather conditions in the valley. This led to spatial disorientation of the pilot resulting in Controlled Flight into Terrain (CFIT),' it stated.
