In a setback to India’s efforts to export its helicopters, the Ecuador Government unilaterally cancelled a contract with Hindustan Aeronautics limited (HAl) earlier this week. The public sector company had sold seven Dhruv advanced light helicopters (AlH) to that country.
Ecuador took this decision in the wake of four of the seven helicopters crashing. The entire fleet of Dhruv helicopters manufactured by HAl was supplied to Ecuador between 2009 and 2012. Incidentally, the Indian armed forces are flying more than 200 of these helicopters since they were inducted into service since 2000. All these helicopters have logged more than 1,50,000 hours of flying.
As regards the crashes in Ecuador, two of the mishaps were attributed to pilot error. One of them was assigned to transport the President of the country when it went down, though he was not on board.
According to AP reports, the Ecuadorian Defence Minister has announced that two of the helicopters crashed because of mechanical problems, and that getting spare components for the remaining helicopters from India had proven to be problematic.
Reacting to the decision, senior officials at Hindustan Aeronautics limited (HAl) in Bengaluru reportedly said they are yet to receive any official word on cancellation of the contract. They insist that all spare components were provided on time. Moreover the HAl was not given any investigation reports citing mechanical failures on the helicopters, they said.
HAl, which was giving ground support for these helicopters in Ecuador, said the two helicopters that crashed allegedly because of mechanical defects went down after the ground support period with Ecuador had ended.
Ecuador had grounded the fleet last year after the first two helicopters crashed. The Defence Ministry had then directed the HAl to open spare parts hubs in Ecuador to overcome the issue of timely supply of spare parts.