Times of India: Mumbai: Monday, January 15, 2018.
There is no
global data on accident rates of major helicopter operators, but had there been
one, then the government-owned Pawan Hans would undoubtedly be up there for
having a high number of air crashes. In the past seven years, accidents
involving Pawan Hans helicopters, including Saturday's when a chopper crashed
with ONGC executives, have claimed 36 lives .
In a span of
three years (2014 to 2016), Pawan Hans had 38 "incidents", according
to information sourced from Pawan Hans through RTI by an activist, who
requested anonymity. In aviation, an incident is an occurrence that could affect
aircraft safety. For instance: engine failure in a twin-engine aircraft that
managed to land safely, with no major injury or damage to man or machine, is as
an incident. The highest number of incidents was 17 in 2016, though number of
flights operated per year came down from 1.06 lakh in 2014 to 78,856.
"A high
incident rate is an indicator of poor safety culture. It's never a result of
failings of one department or a section of people," said a senior
helicopter commander. Another question is, how diligent has the company been in
reporting the incidents to the aviation regulator. An audit by the Directorate
General of Civil Aviation at Pawan Hans's Andaman and Nicobar base last year
showed several engineering and maintenance deficiencies. A Pawan Hans official
said, "The company has been slow in responding to the findings. There's a
certain stupor that has descended especially after the government announced its
decision to privatize the company."
Pawan Hans
has 43 aircraft (now 42), with 32 of them being Dauphins. The Dauphins have
been involved in a majority of crashes and incidents in the past decade, the
official added. "It's like the Agusta Westland crashes that Pawan Hans had
in the 1980s. After a spate of crashes, Westlands were pulled out of its fleet
in 1991," he added.
The last two
years have been rather good for the company, with no fatal accident. But
Saturday's crash has ended that safe run. The company had a similar pattern
early this decade. In 2011, 24 people, including then Arunachal Pradesh CM
Dorjee Khandu, were killed in two crashes within a span of ten days in April.
Though Pawan Hans helicopters continued to crash over the next two years, there
were no fatalities till August 2015 when three were killed in the North East.