final feb cover - Indian Airforce

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Wg Cdr Ashish Kapoor The radio jockey on the car stereo said that Kolaveri di means murderous rage and the song… well it has a catchy tune. I walked into the office with the freshness of the tune lingering in the mind. Later in the day, as I picked up yet another file on aircraft accident caused by press-on-itis or get-home-itis the phrase ‘Kolaveri di’ was replaced by ‘Why this press-on-itis ji’ A large number of accidents/incidents flashed across in my thoughts. Press-on-itis or Get-home-itis simply means the condition when a pilot undertakes a flight as per a fixed plan despite deteriorating conditions when common sense would have a dictated a more safer alternative say to divert or for a helicopter simply to carry out a precautionary landing. In Nov 2010, a Friday, a Mi-17 was to return back from a high altitude helipad detachment to a base in the plains on completion of detachment. The captain a Flt Lt, an experienced pilot in the area, was planned to go on leave the same evening. The co-pilot was another Flt Lt, a course junior to the captain, who was on his first commitment to the area. The CoI findings bring out that the reported weather was marginal at the helipad, Visibility 1500m in Rain and Mist and at the pass, Visibility 1000m partially clear, when the aircraft took off from the helipad at 1204h. At 1205h the weather at the helipad reportedly deteriorated to 22 Aerospace Safety F e b r u a r y 2 0 12 INDIAN AIR FORCE
800m in Rain Fog! The aircraft crashed after a few minutes of Take Off. In the absence of flight data and cockpit voice recorder, both having been destroyed in the post accident fire, the exact cause of the crash has not yet been ascertained. Circumstantial evidence suggests that ‘Press-onitis’ as a factor would have contributed to the accident. In Sep 10, a Saturday, a Chetak was to return on completion of detachment from one airfield to another. The ferry back had been planned the day before but could not be accomplished due to bad weather. The ferry was planned at 1030h but the ferry out had to be delayed till arrival and handing over of detachment to the new crew who just ferried in at about 1100h. The ferry back had been planned with two refueling halts. The aircraft took off at 1213h, two minutes before a weather warning came into effect at departure airfield. The captain communicated his change of destination to a helipad not in the flight plan but which offered refueling and saved him one refueling halt back to base minutes after take off to the departure airfield. The radar at hill top helipad location informed the captain of deterioration of visibility and drifting in of ground level clouds at their site to the captain well in time. The captain, probably hoping that the clouds will drift away, continued towards his revised en-route refueling halt. The captain was a Sqn Ldr with Cat/IR B/Green and the copilot was a Flt Lt with Cat/IR C/White. Subsequently, an attempt was made to land in nil visibility leading to a fatal Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) accident. Another unfortunate case of press-on-itis when the option to select a field and land was so much feasible. In Feb 2001 a Mi-8 took off from an ALG for an air maintenance sortie. The weather was marginal but within limits. By the time the aircraft returned from the drop the weather around the ALG had packed up. Apparently, the crew decided to make an attempt to press on despite the weather resulting in a fatal CFIT accident. The crew were planned to return back to base on completion of the sortie. Another unfortunate case of press-onitis. Why others Way back in 1991, I was ferrying a Mi-8 from base to a ALG in Arunachal for a detachment. On reaching the valley mouth I found the visibility reducing to about 1.5 Kms and less and the cloud ceiling had dropped forcing me to descend to 100 m AGL. I gave blind R/T call declaring my intention to divert to alternate and turned away. But within minutes of my call I heard the captain of a Mi-17 give a call that he was crossing the ridge for the ALG and was changing over to its frequency. I allowed the call to hurt my ego and re-revised my plan to proceed once again to the original destination. We were lucky to have reached the ALG safely that day. But I guess I learned my lesson. Years later on completion of a long detachment at an airfield two Mi-25s were to be ferried back to base. I was leading INDIAN AIR FORCE 2 0 1 2 F e b r u a r y Aerospace Safety 23
Page 1 and 2: Feb 2012 AEROSP CE Safety inside 2
Page 3 and 4: Editorial he article on 'First Air
Page 5 and 6: When questioned as to when had the
Page 7 and 8: abuses, not because it had been slo
Page 9 and 10: Hawk. One them was to be taken by O
Page 11 and 12: “ I have three focus areas for yo
Page 13 and 14: free flying during the initial mont
Page 15 and 16: MCC is central repository of inform
Page 17 and 18: 99 Proper controlling of the planne
Page 19 and 20: Surely enough, an on-base crash was
Page 21 and 22: Have you heard of the acronym FFI T
Page 23: activity and hazards to FS could be
Page 27 and 28: Press-on-itis or Get-home-itis simp
Page 29 and 30: and admin limitations, often a comp
Page 31 and 32: On 29 On 29 Jun 11, 785748-R Cpl Am
Page 33 and 34: ON 11 Aug 11, 743927-H Cpl Sandip K
Page 35 and 36: BEWAR E PROP LLERS AVOID TH E C T

final feb cover - Indian Airforce

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?