November 2012 - Indian Airforce

of the position of aircraft engaged in PI, when
all of a sudden I heard a call, “RPM dropping,
attempting relight.” I immediately informed
the Tower that the SFS should change to the
training frequency on the LUP Set and listen
to the calls of the pilot. Meanwhile the pilot
who had successfully relit the engine of the
Bison ac was heading for base. He informed
the SU controller, “Tell SRE to come up on this
channel. I cannot change frequency.” The ac
was nearly 20-22 miles from touchdown and
I had not identified the ac as yet since both
ac were nearly together, though separated
vertically. Now, had the SU controller told
the ADSO to inform Tower, then Radar and
considering the time required for me to
tune the required channel on the LUP set, it
would have been too late to give any Radar
assistance for the landing/approach. Lady
luck was with us that day and on listening to
the last call about SRE, I instructed the pilot to
turn left onto 170 degree for identification. As
there was no reply I repeated my call. My mind
had started working faster as ac was coming
closer. I called up SU on R/T to transmit to
the ac to turn left for identification. I had
given discretionary descend as well. Range
of my R/T on the Training freq was very less.
So whatever I transmitted on R/T, the same
was repeated by the SU controller and the ac
responded. By the time he turned left, he was
just 11 miles from touchdown. By this time
he started getting my calls. I carried out an
emergency approach and the ac landed with
nearly 3000 L of fuel. It was a heavy landing
and it was indeed commendable on the
pilot’s part to have successfully relit the Bison
engine and landing within no time. The No 2
ac of the formation diverted. That day after I
came home I prayed to God in silence for some
time and thanked him for everything. A COI
was convened and subsequently the pilot was
awarded a well deserved SC. To my surprise, this
was one COI wherein the ATC officer was not
asked any questions. Whatever help I could offer
in the emergency approach was very satisfying
and till date I do not know as to why I had that
urge to change channels and listen to the PI that
day. That helped in saving valuable time, when
time was very critical. May be God had his plans
for me. I may hardly ever get such a close call
again for assisting in an emergency approach in
my life.
There is hardly any cricketer who hasn’t had
his share of a lean patch in his career. I too had my
lean patch a couple of times wherein my timing
wasn’t good and I couldn’t contribute much
with the bat or ball. It was due to Situational
Awareness of the pilot and my luck, that we did
mange a safe recovery.
Missed Being Run Out by a Whisker. The
source of electro-magnetic waves is the radar
and if we vector the ac towards this, then the
ac will head towards the radar and not towards
the touchdown point. There exists a procedure
wherein a Radar Controller offsets the centre to
the touchdown point (thankfully, in present day
radars this off-centering is done at the click of
a button, unlike earlier when it had to be done
manually). Once I was vectoring an ac for JLD
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Aerospace Safety N o v e m b e r 2 0 1 2
INDIAN AIR FORCE