From the earthquake in Gujarat in 2001 to floods in Assam in 2012 and floods in Leh in 2010 to the Tsunami that affected the south-eastern coast of the country in 2004, the 21st century has witnessed natural disasters affecting all corners of the country. While the Indian Air Force (IAF) has always been in the forefront in providing aid to the civil administration and provide succour to the affected populace, yet there remain areas that the IAF along with the civil administration needs to focus on to better exploit its capabilities to mitigate the damage and destruction caused by natural calamities.

Advance Warning

During the floods in Uttarakhand, Shashidhar Reddy, Vice Chairman of the National Disaster Response Force stated that the India Meteorological Department (IMD) needed to develop more precise observational and forecasting capability. Weather forecast worded as “fair to partly cloudy with chances of thunder showers” are rather vague and cover the entire range of weather phenomena. The forecast needs to be more specific to be useful. However, there has been some improvement since then as during the cyclonic storm, Phailin, across the Odisha and Andhra Pradesh coasts in October this year, accurate warnings by the IMD helped reduce casualties significantly. Large sections of the affected population were moved out of harm’s way on time because of timely and accurate warning by the IMD.

Heavy rainfall in the catchment areas in Nepal, often tend to flood the states of UP, Bihar and West Bengal. Adequate liaison between the governments of Nepal and India will enable these states to receive advance warning of release of excess waters from the dams upstream by the Government of Nepal during periods of heavy rainfall. Lack of coordination in this regard resulted in heavy flooding of North Bihar in 2004.

Reconnaissance

In the event of a natural calamity, as a first step, immediate reconnaissance both from the air and on the ground will help ensure proper allocation and deployment of resources. Survey by the IAF and the Indian Army needs to be carried out in coordination with the civil administration.

The Garud para commandos of the IAF and their equivalents in the Army and the Navy should be part of the initial reconnaissance teams. These teams can be air-dropped at different locations to determine the type of help required by the affected people. They can also identify helipads and even assess locations for the creation of new helipads.

The aerial survey will also help designate routeing by helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft from their operating bases into and out of disaster affected areas. Unfortunately, in the Uttarakhand episode, even while the IAF helicopters arrived at Dehradun on June 17, 2013, no aerial reconnaissance was undertaken. An aerial survey early would have enabled the Uttarakhand government to allocate resources to areas needing urgent aid and ground units could have reached trouble spots earlier than they did.

Updated maps of the area with obstacles such as high tension cables, microwave towers, buildings, etc clearly marked, must be made available to the aircrew and ground rescue teams. This task must be executed in coordination with the Air Force Commander responsible for the conduct of air operations. This requirement is particularly critical in the narrow valleys in the Himalayas.

Command, Control and Communication

Command and control of all aerial activity must rest with the IAF, being the more experienced and possessing the largest resources. In Uttarakhand, besides the 45 plus helicopters of the IAF, there were around 15 from the Army and 30 from civil agencies. Though the Air Commander would be guided by the requirements set by the civil administration, he is the final authority to assess the viability of the sortie, for he is aware of the weather and limitations of aircraft/aircrew while operating in the area.

One of the immediate requirements is to establish communication network in the disaster-affected areas. In the case of floods in the plains, roads and bridges will often be washed away and flat-bottom boats are ideally suited for rescue. In mountainous areas; evacuation of the injured, the elderly, women and children by helicopter, would be the preferred option. Restoring communications will become a priority in hilly areas, as it was in Uttarakhand. Along with communications, the need for reliable power supply would be vital for effective and speedy communication. Apart from batteries, generator sets would need to be heli-lifted to the required sites also to facilitate refuelling operations. Helicopters consume enormous quantities of fuel as these platforms would need refuelling at forward helipads. Innovative fuel transfer by the Super Hercules at Dharasu, a very short landing strip in Uttarakhand, resulted in transfer of some 8,000 liters of fuel to a bowser, thus allowing quick resumption of helicopter sorties there.

Aerial Operations

During disaster relief operations, aircrew from diverse units of the IAF, Army, Navy and civilian agencies would constitute the task force. The Air Commander would need to be tactful to ensure willing cooperation by all. Apart from the need for good mutual understanding, there is the need to maintain flying discipline, stipulated timings for the sorties and to ensure that aircraft are not overloaded. Finally, there is the need to report changes in the sortie parameters or observations during the missions to help the Air Commander and the civil administration to execute tasks more efficiently.

Better use of a mix of helicopters would make the accomplishment of the task more effective. Large helicopters such as the Mi-17 with larger rotors compared with the smaller Chetak/Cheetahs require helipads of larger size to operate on. The Mi-26 helicopter, the largest and heaviest rotary-wing platform with the IAF, requires even a larger helipad. As landing may not always be feasible, dropping of food packets by Mi-17 on helipads in the affected areas is often a better option. In addition, this can be followed by spot-dropping of food by smaller helicopters like the Chetak/Cheetah to reach the stranded groups of people directly. Heli-dropped Para Commandos can be of immense help for evacuation of the injured/infirm/elderly as they can, if necessary, assist in winching them up to the helicopter.

During disaster relief operations, the responsibility on the supervisors is indeed heavy. Helicopter pilots are often required to fly into uncharted areas and land on unprepared helipads. They are undoubtedly enthusiastic as missions to save lives are the most soul satisfying that a pilot can ever undertake! All the more reason for supervisors and aircrew to be careful, weigh the risks carefully and only then go ahead to undertake tasks. At that time, there may not be any precedence to follow and it all depends on the pilot’s skill, understanding of the terrain, the machine and the weather, all testing his professionalism and temperament to the utmost. The Air Commander trusts all aircrew to do their best. During the Uttarakhand operations, on one such day, the IAF flew 330 sorties evacuating 4,500 people, reported to be one of the largest such operation in the world ever undertaken. Disaster relief operations are indeed one of the most demanding and yet satisfying that a pilot would ever fly in his career. Fatigue is therefore another factor that the supervisor must be conscious of, for the sake of air safety.

There are equally numerous unsung heroes behind the scene such as the medical staff, technical ground crew who are the first to prepare the aircraft and the last to secure them for the night, the air traffic control personnel and the loaders. Success of disaster relief operations hinges on their effort as well.

Media Management

The media is one of the important factors in disaster relief operations that impacts public perception. The IAF’s sterling performances are often not known in real-time to the nation and it needs to be corrected. Timing is essential with the media or else it is not of much use as news. The normal practice is a media briefing at a senior level with no opportunity for those actually involved with the exercise to interact with journalists.

The IAF needs to formally train officers in media management. The service needs to understand the need to avoid being insular. No attempt should be made to conceal any adverse event as there is no organisation without a flaw. Disaster relief operations too are unlikely to be flawless and hence the service should be prepared to provide a measured response to important occurrences. Any report critical of the service needs to be countered in an objective fashion. The media, when tackled with openness and confidence, in due course, will learn to convey the right picture of the service with a sense of pride.

Need for Better Leadership

Disaster relief operations can be tackled more effectively with advance planning and preparations. Reconnaissance of routes, creation of helipads, accurate weather forecast, positioning of fuel and efficient communications, are critical to the success of these operations. Control and coordination of diverse forces, all geared to give their best, demands leadership of a high quality. Finally, interaction with the media must be an intrinsic part of the disaster relief operations. The IAF has rendered yeoman service to the nation and disaster relief operations have been one of the most challenging and satisfying. The men and women of the IAF will always cherish memories of disaster relief operations undertaken by the service.