Boldly printed words — “Accidents big or small, avoid them all” — are found on the Indian air force calendar of July 2016. However, with the missing Antonov AN-32 with 29 aboard over the Bay of Bengal on July 22, 2016, these well-meaning words serve as a grim reminder to all segments of the armed forces as to how fragile this written prescription can be, since an air borne aircraft disappeared in daylight. That once again raised the issue of the failure of the Indian air force’s flight safety system for the last several decades.

Thus, as more than a fortnight has lapsed and the aircraft remains missing, it is time to revisit the subject in the public interest. One has to start with the basics, through the deductive method, to rebuild the ‘flight envelope’ scenario of the missing IAF Antonov AN-32.  

The basic parameter of An-32 is that its maximum take off weight is 27 tons and the payload capacity is 6.7 tons. On the day of its disappearance, however, it is highly unlikely that the craft would have been fully loaded, owing to its comparatively long haul, a three-hour flight time over the sea, inclement weather and Tambaram’s short runway. Being capable of making a short run take off, the IAF craft certainly could not have had any problem being airborne from either of the two short Tambaram runways, of 4965 feet and 5965 ft respectively. Once airborne to cover the Chennai-Port Blair sector in three hours, the craft vanished from the radar after having flown 151 nautical miles. As weather was reported to be rough with a 18 to 20 knots south-westerly monsoon wind, a visibility of three to four nautical miles and a sea-state of three to four (which makes it a choppy sea with strong surface wind), the craft, cruising at a height of 23,000 feet certainly could not have had a smooth flight with more than real time rolling, pitching as well as yawing (the three types of vertical, horizontal and lateral aircraft body response to air turbulence). 

If one visualizes weather as the cause for the missing aircraft, one would be curious as to what a comparatively experienced pilot (say of the rank of wing commander or group captain) would have done. Would he prefer to go back to the base from where he had taken off or, if he were unable to make a ‘course-correction’, would he prefer to fly through the turbulent air flow rather than fighting against extreme turbulence through the medium of the cockpit control panel? It is a situation akin to that faced by seasoned sailors in choppy seas where, instead of fighting the waves to keep the vessel on course, the sailors try to ride the waves, however painful or difficult that manoeuvre may be to the men and their machine. Were the two flight lieutenants experienced enough to handle the rough weather of the overseas flight?

The larger issue today, however, appears more serious: was the episode of the missing-in-flight An-32 avoidable or not? The avoidable aspect has been mentioned above — a possible ‘man-machine-weather interaction’ at 23,000 feet over choppy seas. What is baffling is the question: why did the flight crew not have any reaction time to communicate their situation to Chennai air traffic control before going missing from the radar? What happened in a flash in spite of “standard navigation/ communication avionics consisting of two Very High Frequency transceivers, High Frequency, intercom, two Automatic Direction Finders, radio altimeter, glide-path receiver, glide-slope receiver, weather-navigation radar” on board? What happened in a fraction of a second? 

Was it a catastrophic structural failure of the aircraft owing to turbulence? Wind shear? Uncontrollable ‘down spiralling’ owing to extreme and unforeseen ‘down draught wind’ over the sea? Panicky crew who failed to utter a word? Bomb blast? Missile attack? Collective suicide mission of the crew? Sabotage? Or could it be a case of an unprecedented emergency landing in an unknown island or Myanmar or somewhere else? 

All the above possibilities, however, would be in the realm of speculation at present, as only an in-depth inquiry committee consisting of technically competent and professionally qualified personnel would be able to unearth the mystery of the missing IAF An-32. One fact is that India has sought the help of both the United States of America and Russia to find the missing craft. This is a sign that sooner or later, rather sooner than later, India has to make a very uncomfortable declaration pertaining to the missing An-32. That will open a can of dirty comments and scathing criticism pertaining to the traditionally poor flight safety record of the IAF.

No doubt the legacy of the IAF’s poor flight safety is an unpleasant issue as successive air chiefs have grappled with the problem of recurrent air crashes of front line fighters in the past. Some may say that as and when an aircraft flies, there is always the possibility of a mishap. True. Like accidents of four wheelers on the road. However, there is something more than what meets the eye in the Indian context of IAF flight safety. There simply have been too many fatalities for more than three decades. And that is the cause for concern for the country. The IAF is India’s air force. It belongs to the people of India and its excessively long poor flight safety record can on no account be taken lightly any more.

In February 2009, the then defence minister had stated that aircraft retirement had been accompanied by a fall in the number of IAF combat squadrons from the “authorised 39.5 squadrons to 29”. According to a 2014 authentic open source report, in the region of 1000 combat aircraft have been lost to accidents since 1970. 

In 2012 also the then defence minister had said that “33 fighter aircraft and 10 helicopters had been destroyed in accidents between 2008 and March 2012, killing 26 defence personnel and 13 pilots”. Even in 2013 there were “seven recorded accidents”.

The most unpleasant finding in the open source report was that “the combined air force-navy accident rate is calculated at 6-7 per 100,000 flying hours flown, compared to NATO air forces’ rate of 4-5”. It has also been openly ascertained and analysed to reveal that several complicated, yet interlinked, factors have led to this high rate of IAF air crashes. 

Today, however, we may again ask what led to the sudden disappearance of the IAF transport Antonov AN-32 from 23000 feet when flying from Chennai to Port Blair? Was the cause  avoidable or unavoidable? Did it happen owing to pilot error, poor maintenance, inefficient up-gradation or retrofit, spares shortage, inclement weather, sabotage, catastrophic structural failure or engine failure? No specific answer can be given at this point in time. Nevertheless, as an informed and interested member of the Indian state, this writer has tried to visualize, as dispassionately and objectively as possible, the flight scenario of the aircraft on Friday, July 22, 2016. However, I sincerely wish that the IAF comes out of the crisis unscathed.