Ten days have passed since a Pawan Hans chopper went down in the Arabian Sea, while one pilot’s body has been recovered, another remains untraceable. It appears that this tragedy could have been averted had safety norms been followed. It took 120 hours to find co-pilot TK Guha’s body, while pilot Captain E Samuel is still missing after the 14-seater Dauphin aircraft crashed on November 4.
Indicating a technical snag, officials close to the development stated that the chopper had four floaters that should have inflated upon impact with the seawater, but failed to deploy, leading to the chopper sinking.
A DGCA official explained, “The floaters are automated to deploy as soon as they come in contact with saline water, but in this case it didn’t happen, leading to the crash and loss of life. This is a technical fault and has to be investigated.”
Apart from this, neither of them had been issued a Personal Beacon Locater (PLB) that is mandatory according to regulations under the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). This would have helped the pilots to send out distress signals and could have helped the rescuers find them early on. It has now emerged that in gross violation of norms, Pawan Hans has not issued beacons to any of its pilots.
14/11/15 Neha LM Tripathi/Mid Day
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Indicating a technical snag, officials close to the development stated that the chopper had four floaters that should have inflated upon impact with the seawater, but failed to deploy, leading to the chopper sinking.
A DGCA official explained, “The floaters are automated to deploy as soon as they come in contact with saline water, but in this case it didn’t happen, leading to the crash and loss of life. This is a technical fault and has to be investigated.”
Apart from this, neither of them had been issued a Personal Beacon Locater (PLB) that is mandatory according to regulations under the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). This would have helped the pilots to send out distress signals and could have helped the rescuers find them early on. It has now emerged that in gross violation of norms, Pawan Hans has not issued beacons to any of its pilots.
14/11/15 Neha LM Tripathi/Mid Day
