karan nationalist
BANNED
New Recruit
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2014
- Messages
- 16
- Reaction score
- 0
- Country
- Location
NEW DELHI: The IAF on Monday firmly ruled out the possibility that Chinese counterfeit parts in the display systems of the C-130J "Super Hercules" aircraft could have been responsible for the crash near Gwalior last week, even as it awaits the analysis of the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) of the ill-fated special operations plane.
The IAF hopes to get a preliminary understanding of what exactly went wrong in the March 28 crash — which killed four officers and a junior commissioned officer — within "two-three days" after the data on the FDR (black box that captures the complete flight profile) and CVR (records cockpit conversation for the last 30 minutes) is analysed by aircraft-manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
"We also have the capabilities to 'milk' the CVR and FDR for the data. But since they were slightly damaged in this case, we decided not to take chances and sent them to the original equipment manufacturer for analysis," said an officer.
Though the ongoing court of inquiry will establish the exact cause for the mishap, it's felt that there could have been "some inadvertent error" during the tactical low-level training sortie by the two C-130Js flying in formation last Friday. The mission was meant to simulate para-dropping of soldiers after flying low into "enemy" territory to evade radars.
As for the fake Chinese parts, IAF said both the US government and Lockheed Martin had earlier given "an all-clear signal" to India in connection with the six C-130Js acquired under the $962 million contract inked in 2007.
After an investigation by the US Senate armed services committee in 2011-2012 held that some counterfeit Chinese electronic parts had been used in the multi-function displays (MFDs) for the C-130Js and other US aircraft, New Delhi had sought an explanation from Washington.
"The US had then given us the serial numbers of the components that were suspected. We sent those components in batches to the US for checking ... most have come back with no Chinese parts being detected in them. The MFDs went through all quality checks," said the officer.
But even if a few defective parts did manage to slip through, IAF says MFDs simply have no bearing on flight safety. "MFDs have enough redundancies built in. Even if they blank out completely, there are stand-by conventional dials available to the pilots," he said.
The IAF hopes to get a preliminary understanding of what exactly went wrong in the March 28 crash — which killed four officers and a junior commissioned officer — within "two-three days" after the data on the FDR (black box that captures the complete flight profile) and CVR (records cockpit conversation for the last 30 minutes) is analysed by aircraft-manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
"We also have the capabilities to 'milk' the CVR and FDR for the data. But since they were slightly damaged in this case, we decided not to take chances and sent them to the original equipment manufacturer for analysis," said an officer.
Though the ongoing court of inquiry will establish the exact cause for the mishap, it's felt that there could have been "some inadvertent error" during the tactical low-level training sortie by the two C-130Js flying in formation last Friday. The mission was meant to simulate para-dropping of soldiers after flying low into "enemy" territory to evade radars.
As for the fake Chinese parts, IAF said both the US government and Lockheed Martin had earlier given "an all-clear signal" to India in connection with the six C-130Js acquired under the $962 million contract inked in 2007.
After an investigation by the US Senate armed services committee in 2011-2012 held that some counterfeit Chinese electronic parts had been used in the multi-function displays (MFDs) for the C-130Js and other US aircraft, New Delhi had sought an explanation from Washington.
"The US had then given us the serial numbers of the components that were suspected. We sent those components in batches to the US for checking ... most have come back with no Chinese parts being detected in them. The MFDs went through all quality checks," said the officer.
But even if a few defective parts did manage to slip through, IAF says MFDs simply have no bearing on flight safety. "MFDs have enough redundancies built in. Even if they blank out completely, there are stand-by conventional dials available to the pilots," he said.
