June 2012 - Indian Airforce

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Sqn Ldr R Kadyan Since the dawn of aviation industry we have had many accidents owing to marginal weather conditions. ‘Respect weather and decide in time’ is the golden rule and if adhered to will definitely help in preventing accidents/ incidents. It was one of the monsoon months of 2009. I was posted to a premier fighter base in the Northern region. On this fateful day, I was part of a 4 ac formation tasked to carry out a dummy strike over another airfield in the J&K sector. The latter part of our route involved considerable amount of valley flying. I had recently attained my supervisory status and was quite eager to fly this mission. Due to bad weather at the target base our early morning scheduled take off got considerably delayed. Eventually by afternoon, on getting latest weather, we got airborne. The enroute weather was as predicted and did not hamper the safe transit till we hit the foothills. As we crossed over the first ridge line, the difficulty quotient of the exercise increased as it entailed RV with two ‘Tied Escorts’ in marginal weather conditions. A successful RV with escorts was achieved and the mission continued as briefed. Looking towards the hills along the planned route, I spotted a thick black layer of towering clouds. Out of sheer restlessness, I piped up on R/T for a weather update from an enroute fighter base. The feedback which we received was base specific and no update on weather over the hills was given. The Escort Leader also updated reasonable vertical development of this clouding. With every passing second the formation got closer and my restlessness kept increasing. Our six ac formation was a minute away from the planned intercept leg when broken clouding started interfering with our formation keeping. The formation leader ordered a few side steps to avoid patches of clouds. I was sure the formation members must have felt uncomfortable flying in that scenario. Soon, the escorts were out of sight as they resorted to height separation due to clouding. The formation keeping was getting challenging and the situation was expected to get worse once the tactical action would commence which included loss of contact, height separation, escape routes etc. With the increase of clouding my discomfort 10 Aerospace Safety J u n e 2 0 1 2 INDIAN AIR FORCE
level was rapidly increasing. Eventually, I piped up on R/T and asked the leader to abort the mission. I expected a positive reply and mentally prepared myself for subsequent actions. However, when the leader called to ‘continue’, I was shocked. My professional competence was getting sandwiched between taking a safe decision and continuing with the mission. Our formation also had pilots with lesser experience who were also continuing without expressing their discomfort. The reason for their silence was not difficult to predict at that moment. They behaved as true followers with immense faith in their leader. This fact hit my professional ego - ’if they could do it then why not me’. The ‘Formation’ integrity was being challenged at every step due to extended trails of clouding and the worst was yet to come. Finally, one of the junior pilots expressed his discomfort on R/T and requested to abort the mission. By this time our ‘Formation’ had already entered the black turbulent wall of clouds. A turn about was ordered after establishing height separation which was a bit relaxing but a big challenge of avoiding a mid air collision loomed large! Our ‘Formation’ at this time was over the hills where the ‘Route Safety Altitude’ was as high as 16500’. The ordered maneuver was being executed with standard height separation. A conventional turn-about in a large formation in perfect VMC requires clearances from various members to avoid collision whereas in the said condition it was getting executed in nil visibility conditions, without any clue of relative positions of the other members! The turbulence was so severe that 1000’ height separation appeared very less. All of us were flying on instruments and struggling against turbulence to maintain flying parameters. The thought of other aircraft in close proximity was the scariest of all. The stage was all set for disorientation i.e large formation, height maintenance, turbulent weather and nil visual references. The silence was broken by two R/T calls- first one of ‘HUD failure’ from No.2 and the second of ‘TGT Amplifier failure’ from the formation leader. After a long battle (short on time domain) with our machines and weather, the formation eventually broke clouds. The sky was visible in patches. It took another couple of minutes and a long series of R/T calls and aircraft manoeuvring before we could re-establish our formation and recover at our base. During the mission debrief few more tales about individual discomfort came to light and the scariest amongst all was the one associated with ‘HUD failure’. ‘All is well that ends well’ applied perfectly to our formation A few lessons emerged out of this incident which should make us wiser :- ‘Respect Weather’- universally published but least followed. A perfect balance should be maintained between professional ego/competence and safety. Every member of a formation is equally responsible for formation safety. Decide and act in time before things go out of hand. Formation leaders must take decisions based on the least experienced member. Respect decisions of juniors as well. Do not let your ego overpower a safe decision. During peace time missions do not push your luck too hard for it to favour you on every occasion. Peculiarity of weather over hills should be emphasized in detail for missions involving valley/hill transit. Let your experience benefit others for a better flight safety environment. -Sqn Ldr R Kadyan INDIAN AIR FORCE 2 0 1 2 J u n e Aerospace Safety 11
Page 4 and 5: Gp Capt (Retd) Rajesh Kumar 2 Aeros
Page 6 and 7: well and he decided to clear the pi
Page 8 and 9: Wg Cdr Juhi Borgohain 6 Aerospace S
Page 10 and 11: World Health Organisation The WHO e
Page 14 and 15: Sqn Ldr Binu Venugopal 12 Aerospace
Page 16 and 17: At present on our couriers flying o
Page 18 and 19: Flt Lt UB Singh 16 Aerospace Safety
Page 20 and 21: Flt Lt K Sharma Lessons Learnt in F
Page 22 and 23: Sqn Ldr NK Rath 20 Aerospace Safety
Page 24 and 25: Flt Lt Anoop SL 22 Aerospace Safety
Page 26 and 27: Sqn Ldr Vikram Chhibber It was Oct
Page 28 and 29: further enhancing the jovial atmosp
Page 30 and 31: Cdr Sunil Chungath Somebody asked m
Page 32 and 33: On 28 Oct 11, 786517-A Cpl P R Deor
Page 34 and 35: On 16 Nov 11, 913796-F Cpl TB Sriva
Page 36: 36 Aerospace Safety J u n e 2 0 1 2

June 2012 - Indian Airforce

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