The IAF needs to Crystallise projects through viable foreign collaboration for the timely replacement of the An-32 fleet

On June 9, an Antonov An-32 transport aircraft crashed after it lost radio contact barely 15 minutes after taking off from an advanced landing ground at Mechuka in Upper Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh. The aircraft was carrying a crew of six Indian Air Force (IAF) personnel and seven passengers from the Indian Army. The incident comes a decade after another An-32 had crashed in Palam after hitting obstructions while landing at IGI airport in extremely poor visibility.

The IAF received the first batch of An-32 aircraft in 1984 as a replacement for the vintage C-119 Fairchild Packet fleet that were procured at nominal cost after the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict. Compared to the piston-engine C-119 without jet pack, the An-32 is equipped with engines nearly one-anda-half times as powerful, has a 30 per cent higher cruising speed, is pressurised, has far superior single engine climb rate but has 18 per cent lower cargo capacity. With a better power to weight ratio, the An-32 has proved to be an efficient and capable machine to operate in the mountainous regions of Ladakh and the Northeast.

Flying in the Northeast involves operating from advanced landing grounds that are not easy to access and also demand high levels of professional skill and judgement. Difficulties for the crew multiply if weather conditions are unfavourable and the tops of mountains or hills are obscured by clouds. Ground based radio navigational aids are totally inadequate over these areas and if weather inhibits visual contact with the ground, it is difficult to assure any degree of accuracy in navigation. The golden rule to be followed by pilots ought to be never to enter clouds unless safely above the highest obstruction level. Sometimes this may not be possible and the pilot must take due precaution. However, if this principle is ignored or violated due to overconfidence, complacency or sheer carelessness, it is a sure recipe for disaster.

Of the over 100 An-32 aircraft procured by the IAF, nine have been lost in accidents over the last 25 years, including the one that perished in the June mishap. Three of the accidents were attributed to pilot error. In the case of the brand new aircraft that disappeared without trace or transmission over the Arabian Sea in 1985 while flying into India from the factory, the reason is not known. In four of the remaining five fatal accidents, bad weather combined possibly with poor judgement resulted in what is termed as Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT). To date, there has been no accident due to catastrophic technical failure of any kind on the aircraft—evidence that the An-32 is a robust and reliable workhorse, and the backbone of the IAF’s transport fleet.

In terms of technology, however, the An-32 is essentially an upgraded version of the An-26 developed by the Ukraine-based Antonov Design Bureau specifically for the IAF. Compared with the latter, the An-32 has a higher payload capacity and is fitted with engines which are nearly twice as powerful. The aircraft was test flown in 1976 and although it carries some avionics of Indian origin, the technology of the basic platform is around five decades old and somewhat outdated. When operating in bad weather, especially over the northeastern regions, which are devoid of modern navigational aids, margins of air safety are eroded substantially. While in terms of performance, the An-32 has been effective, lack of modern avionics continues to be a serious handicap.

While inquiry into the June disaster would establish the cause of the crash with fair degree of certainty through data milked from the on-board recorders, the circumstances surrounding the accident as reported in the media point strongly at the possibility of another unfortunate case of CFIT taking a heavy toll of life.