New Delhi: Production quality of the country's only aircraft manufacturer, defence PSU Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL), is once again under the scanner after the crash of a Hawk advanced jet trainer (AJT) last month.
Sources said "quill-shaft failure" in the engine has emerged as the prime reason behind the crash of the twin-seat Hawk AJT, which went down in Odisha while on a training sortie from the Kalaikunda airbase in West Bengal on June 3. Fortunately, the two pilots managed to eject safely.
HAL is tasked with manufacturing 99 of the 123 Hawks ordered from BAE Systems, with transfer of technology, in the overall AJT project already worth well over Rs 16,000 crore till now. But the entire endeavor has been marred by politico-bureaucratic apathy, poor long-term planning, flawed multiple contracts and delayed delivery schedules.
As it is, the crash of an AJT, which is meant to be a robust fail-safe flying machine to train rookie pilots in the intricacies of combat flying, is startling. But what has further raised eyebrows is that the ill-fated Hawk, with a Rolls-Royce engine, had clocked just about 1,050 hours of flying.
06/07/15 Rajat Pandit/Times of India
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Sources said "quill-shaft failure" in the engine has emerged as the prime reason behind the crash of the twin-seat Hawk AJT, which went down in Odisha while on a training sortie from the Kalaikunda airbase in West Bengal on June 3. Fortunately, the two pilots managed to eject safely.
HAL is tasked with manufacturing 99 of the 123 Hawks ordered from BAE Systems, with transfer of technology, in the overall AJT project already worth well over Rs 16,000 crore till now. But the entire endeavor has been marred by politico-bureaucratic apathy, poor long-term planning, flawed multiple contracts and delayed delivery schedules.
As it is, the crash of an AJT, which is meant to be a robust fail-safe flying machine to train rookie pilots in the intricacies of combat flying, is startling. But what has further raised eyebrows is that the ill-fated Hawk, with a Rolls-Royce engine, had clocked just about 1,050 hours of flying.
06/07/15 Rajat Pandit/Times of India
