What Ails Our Military Aviation & The Remedies

With the tragic crash of the Indian Air Force Mi-17V5 helicopter carrying Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, his wife Mrs Madhulika Rawat and 12 other personnel in Tamil Nadu’s Coonoor on Wednesday, December 8, the spotlight is back on air safety and flight readiness of Indian military aircraft (including those in the Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian Navy and Coast Guard).

From the strikingly-named ‘flying coffins’ (MiG-21s) that keep crashing with eerie regularity to the less frequent but nevertheless shocking spate of incidents involving aircraft carrying VVIPs, the Indian military aviation apparatus is now hard-pressed to provide satisfactory answers and bring its house to order.

In the year 2019 alone, the Indian Air Force lost 20 personnel and 12 planes in crashes. These included planes like MiG, Mirage 2000, Su-30 and Jaguar.

Going a little further back, the Defence Ministry informed Parliament that 27 Indian Air Force aircraft have crashed since the year 2016. In 2016-17, six IAF fighter jets, two helicopters, one transport aircraft and one trainer crashed. In 2017-18, the IAF lost two fighter jets and one trainer aircraft in crashes. This number rose in 2018-19 when the IAF lost seven fighter jets, two helicopters and two trainers.

Since 1970, over 180 IAF pilots have been killed in MiG-21 accidents and over 40 civilians have also perished in these accidents. And yet, India continues to use these aircraft, in actual combat situations, for training exercises and ferrying VIPs. Demands to replace and phase out the MiG-21s have been raised for atleast three decades now and the IAF realised in the early 80s that it needed to replace these aircraft as their shelf life was coming to an end. The IAF introduced the Light Combat Aircraft (Tejas) programme towards this end but red tape and snags caused it to be delayed by several years.

Apart from bureaucratic wrangling and lack of political clarity, many other causes lead to accidents involving military aviation aircraft, prominent among these being pilot error/human error, technical issues/faults and bird hits. While bird hits are abrupt and unpredictable, and therefore, tough to anticipate, pilot error is one factor that can be remedied. However, it is technical faults — involving the entire gamut of maintenance issues, operational glitches, unavailability of spare parts or faulty spare parts and shortcomings in routine technical readiness — that contribute majorly to the majority of air accidents involving military aircraft.

So, what remedial steps are needed to make sure that fewer accidents occur, lesser aircraft crash and death of pilots, crew and passengers becomes a rare occurrence?

Phasing Out Obsolete Aircraft

This is a no-brainer but the sooner the Indian military aviation phases out obsolete aircraft, including but not limited to MiG-21s, the better it will be for the operational health of the entity. In 2019, it was planned that the IAF will phase out nine squadrons of the MiG-21 and 2 MiG-27 over the next 5 years. This action now needs to be taken for the entire fleet of MiG-21s. Having earned the unflattering moniker of ‘flying coffin’ and ‘widow maker’, the Indian Air Force will be a much leaner and meaner force without these obsolete aircraft.

More Investment In Indigenous Military Hardware

Following close on the heels of the INS Vikrant, there is a growing clamour for investment in indigenous military equipment and hardware. A case in point is the multi-role light fighter Tejas, which has been designed by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), in collaboration with the Aeronautical Development Agency, for use by the IAF and the Indian Navy. It traces its descent to the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) programme, which began in the 1980s to replace the ageing MiG-21 fighters. In 2003, the LCA was officially named “Tejas”. It is the smallest and lightest in its class of contemporary supersonic combat aircraft. The Tejas is the second supersonic fighter developed by HAL after the HAL HF-24 Marut. The Tejas achieved initial operational clearance in 2011 and final operational clearance in 2019.

Better Training Conditions and Upgraded Simulators

The performance of an aircraft, to a large extent, is dependent on the training its pilot has received and has been able to apply in real time. Consequently, providing better training conditions to pilots must figure right at the top among priorities. In the context of the accident involving Gen Rawat, questions are being raised about why the helicopter was flying at a very low altitude. Another pertinent question here is did the pilot have any weather alerts from Air Traffic Control? Could better training conditions and time spent on flight simulators have prevented oversights and errors?