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NEW DELHI: The IAF is closer to finding out what led to the crash of the C-130J 'Super Hercules' plane that killed five personnel near Gwalior on March 28, with aircraft manufacturer Lockheed Martin handing over the data extracted from its damaged cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) to the force.
The ongoing court of inquiry headed by an air commodore will now "analyse" the CVR and FDR data, handed over on Thursday, and "correlate" it with "other things" and "sequence of events" to establish the exact reason for the crash, said sources.
Preliminary findings point to a combination of factors, including "some inadvertent errors", that led the C-130J to first stall and then crash while following another similar "special operations" aircraft in "a tactical low-level training" sortie.
"The accident happened just before the identified 'drop zone' when the aircraft, flying at a low level to evade enemy radars, slows down quite a bit to offload paratroopers or equipment. There was no radio exchange between the ill-fated aircraft and the other C-130J in the front... there was no warning," said a source.
The IAF has already ruled out the possibility that Chinese counterfeit parts in the display systems of the C-130J could have been responsible for the crash, which came as a big blow to the force. While IAF had inducted six C-130Js under a $962 million contract inked in 2007, another six were ordered recently to boost its special operations and tactical airlift capabilities.
IAF is also inducting 10 gigantic C-17 Globemaster-III aircraft, contracted from Boeing for $4.1 billion in mid-2011, to boost its strategic airlift capabilities. While the first lot of C-130Js in the 77 'Veiled Vipers' Squadron are based at Hindon on the outskirts of New Delhi, the next six are earmarked for Panagarh (West Bengal) in conjunction with the new Army mountain strike corps being raised with an eye on China.
Both the rugged C-17s and C-130Js can land even at small forward airbases on semi-prepared runways, which will be crucial for India to counter China's massive build-up of military infrastructure all along the 4,057-km Line of Actual Control, which includes an extensive rail and road network as well as five fully-operational new airbases in Tibet.
IAF begins 'analyzing' data extracted from black box of crashed C-130J plane - The Times of India
The ongoing court of inquiry headed by an air commodore will now "analyse" the CVR and FDR data, handed over on Thursday, and "correlate" it with "other things" and "sequence of events" to establish the exact reason for the crash, said sources.
Preliminary findings point to a combination of factors, including "some inadvertent errors", that led the C-130J to first stall and then crash while following another similar "special operations" aircraft in "a tactical low-level training" sortie.
"The accident happened just before the identified 'drop zone' when the aircraft, flying at a low level to evade enemy radars, slows down quite a bit to offload paratroopers or equipment. There was no radio exchange between the ill-fated aircraft and the other C-130J in the front... there was no warning," said a source.
The IAF has already ruled out the possibility that Chinese counterfeit parts in the display systems of the C-130J could have been responsible for the crash, which came as a big blow to the force. While IAF had inducted six C-130Js under a $962 million contract inked in 2007, another six were ordered recently to boost its special operations and tactical airlift capabilities.
IAF is also inducting 10 gigantic C-17 Globemaster-III aircraft, contracted from Boeing for $4.1 billion in mid-2011, to boost its strategic airlift capabilities. While the first lot of C-130Js in the 77 'Veiled Vipers' Squadron are based at Hindon on the outskirts of New Delhi, the next six are earmarked for Panagarh (West Bengal) in conjunction with the new Army mountain strike corps being raised with an eye on China.
Both the rugged C-17s and C-130Js can land even at small forward airbases on semi-prepared runways, which will be crucial for India to counter China's massive build-up of military infrastructure all along the 4,057-km Line of Actual Control, which includes an extensive rail and road network as well as five fully-operational new airbases in Tibet.
IAF begins 'analyzing' data extracted from black box of crashed C-130J plane - The Times of India
