Bangalore crash report faults plane developer

Mumbai: At 3.33 pm on March 6, 2009, India's first civilian aircraft took off for its 49th test flight. Ten seconds later, it came crashing down, killing three Indian Air Force (IAF) pilots on board.
The SARAS PT2, developed by the Bangalore-based National Aeronautics Ltd (NAL), crashed on the outskirts of Bangalore when the pilots were checking if the aircraft's engines could be restarted mid-air.
A year after the crash, the DGCA found serious lapses in NAL's designing, developing and execution of the project. Hindustan Times has a copy of the probe report.
The report said the flight test director had only verbally informed the pilots: "In case of any problem during the relight attempt, no effort should be made to relight (the engines) a second time."
The DGCA also found that although NAL earlier flew two SARAS prototypes for over 100 hours since its maiden flight in 2004, it did not have any plans or procedures for exigencies.
What's more, considered to be India’s premier aeronautical design agency, NAL subcontracted the design and development part, including flight-testing analysis, to a Bangalore-based private agency, Aircraft Design and Engineering Service Ltd, without authorisation.
27/04/10 Presley Thomas/Hindustan Times

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Categories: New Apr 2010, Safety Apr 2010