An Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) Dhruv of the Indian Coast Guard met with a fatal accident while it was on a standard operating training exercise at Porbandar, Gujarat, on Sunday. The crash happened at Coast Guard Air Enclave, and according to sources, all three occupants in the aircraft were killed, which comprised two pilots. Preliminary investigations have pointed to an internaltechnical malfunction as the cause of the crash of the helicopter.
”This brought out a technical problem which led to the accident and took the lives of three people on board,” a police officer told a new agency. The Coast Guard has commenced an inquiry into the accident and the rest remains pending.
The accident raises questions about the continuation of the ALH Dhruv program, which has been under various issues in the last few years. Because of a string of crashes caused by design flaws, the very fleets have come under criticism despite being developed and produced by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The fleet was over and over again last year after some mishaps that were rather ambiguous regarding the airworthiness of the air fleet.
HAL addressed this issue by installing important control changes, which increased the helicopter’s safety margin. The recent accident was averted by such efforts, but it clearly indicates that there is a need to evaluate the fleet’s remaining dependability and effectiveness in performing critical missions.
Helicopter Dhruv is one of the critical platforms of the Indian Coast Guard as well as the armed forces to meet the operational requirement of this category for safer handling in SAR/DR & reconnaissance roles. This tragic crash is a further sign of how the continuation of such operations is hazardous and the constant attempts must be made to keep people from harm.
Police have conveyed their condolences to the families who were affected by the incident and also assured the public of their effort to establish the actual cause of the accident to avoid such a calamity from happening in the region again.
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