In the backdrop of all 13 personnel on board dying in an AN-32 air crash in Arunachal Pradesh in June, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday sought to allay fears about the aircraft saying it was completely airworthy. Terming the accident as unfortunate, he, however, said the accident rate of aircraft of IAF had gone down over the years.
Making this assertion during the Question Hour in the Rajya Sabga, he said nearly 52 AN-32 aircraft were upgraded. However, it was not correct to assume that the non upgraded transport planes were not air worthy, Singh said. India and Ukraine had inked a 500 million dollar pact in 2009 to upgrade the nearly 100-strong fleet of the AN-32 inducted into the IAF in the mid 1980s. The plane which crashed recently was not upgraded.
In a bid to allay apprehensions about the safety record of the various types of planes operated by the IAF, the defence minister informed the house the accident rate per 10,000 flying hours has come down from 1.04 in 1999 to 0.33 currently.
“I want to assure the House that our AN-32 fleet is airworthy and there was no problem. But this incident happened, which is very unfortunate,” he told the house. The average accident rate has reduced from 1.04 per 10,000 flying hours in 1999 to 0.52 in 2004. This has further reduced to 0.46 in the next five years and currently the accident rate is 0.33 per 10,000 flying hours, he said.
He also said if there was no improvement, the rate of accidents per 10,000 flying hours would not have come down. There must have been many improvements brought about, the minister said while replying to a question on whether any steps have been taken to prevent air accidents.
As regards the ill-fated AN-32 plane which crashed near the Mechuka advanced landing ground in Arunachal Pradesh on June 3, Singh said a total of 13 people lost their lives. The mortal remains of all have been recovered and sent to their families.