Lack of trainers takes toll on young pilots

A Jaguar fighter aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) crashed on Thursday in UP’s Gorakhpur, killing the pilot, Flight Lieutenant S Pandey, and a farmer.

Pandey was on a training sortie when the aircraft spun out of control and crashed killing a farmer on the ground and then sunk into a nearby pond.

This was the second major accident for the IAF in a week. Flight Lieutenant MS Pillai died in a training sortie while flying a MiG 21 in Nal, Bikaner, on Tuesday.

Sources in the IAF headquarters told DNA that evidence available in both accidents pointed to a case of pilot error.

“It is too early for us to draw any conclusions but in both cases, these were young pilots with about 40 hours of flying behind them,” a senior air force official said.

According to him, the Jaguar pilot was flying at a low level and had completed a series of maneuvers when he suddenly did a hard turn and the aircraft spun out of control.

“We are still trying to locate the FDR (data recorder) of the aircraft, which will have all the details, but we are guessing that the pilot lost control.”

The MiG-21 crash also occurred in similar circumstances when the pilot was on a low-level flight and suddenly lost control and crashed into the ground.

The initial investigations have revealed that there was no defect in the upgraded MiG-21 “Bison” thus narrowing down the cause of the accident to “pilot error”.

Both crashes come within days of the induction of the new chief of air staff, Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne who is a Jaguar pilot.

Sources close to Browne told DNA that the air chief was extremely disturbed and was looking at training schedules of the rookie pilots to prevent such accidents.