June 2012 - Indian Airforce

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