HAL To Decide On ALH Dhruv Fleet Clearance By Saturday

Having put flying all 330 ALH Dhruvs on hold after the recent crash in Porbandar, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is carrying out a detailed analysis of the crash and is expected to take a call on Saturday on whether the Indigenous chopper fleet can resume flying operations or continue to remain on the ground.

The flying operations of the 330 ALH Dhruvs were stopped after an Indian Coast Guard chopper with three personnel crashed during a routine training sortie. All three personnel lost their lives in the crash.

HAL is carrying out detailed investigations into the crash and its teams are analysing the wreckage of the chopper in Porbandar. They are expected to take a call on whether the chopper fleet can resume flying or remain on the ground by Saturday, defence sources told ANI.

“The flight data recorder has been recovered and its analysis is going on extensively and it is expected that the exact cause will be known,” they said.

Sources said that the HAL had got the design of the ALH Dhruv reviewed by the Indian certification agencies and then from an external agency as well.

The design review of the ALH choppers was done by a Netherlands-based firm and it stated that the design of the choppers was okay and there was nothing wrong with it.

The HAL had also formed a committee under former Indian Air Force Maintenance Command chief Air Marshal Vibhas Pande (Retd) to give suggestions on the issue of maintenance of choppers in the Indian Coast Guard.

The committee headed by the Air Marshal had given its suggestions for further improving the maintenance practices and they are being implemented by the public sector firm.

The HAL has signed a five-year performance-based logistics agreement with the Coast Guard for maintaining its fleet.

The aerospace firm has also been replacing the vulnerable parts which may have caused accidents in the past.

The control rods of the entire fleet of these choppers were equipped with steel rods to overcome the issues caused by them. Same way, when some issues were found with a particular part of the engine, all the engines of the batch were called back to replace those parts, sources said.

The engines have also been reviewed by the HAL with the French company Safran which is the partner for the manufacturing of Shakti engines used by the ALH Dhruv fleet. (ANI)