The Hindu : The AJT acquisition

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 15, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

The AJT acquisition

GIVEN THE UNPARDONABLY long delay in acquiring advanced jet trainers (AJTs), official assurances that the deal for these aircraft will be finalised shortly are generally met with scepticism. Even though the crucial decisions remain to be made — for example, choosing which company to award the contract to and securing the clearance of the Cabinet Committee on Security — New Delhi is closer to clinching the matter than ever before. The first proposal to acquire jet trainers was made in 1983 and the subsequent narrative of the country's muddled attempts to purchase these aircraft make for a painful history. Callousness, indifference and red-tapism at the decision-making level have combined to delay the selection process for the AJTs, something that has cost the country an enormous amount in cost overruns.

The real price of delay, however, should also be calculated in terms of the enormous number of IAF crashes and the loss of the invaluable lives of pilots. The reason for acquiring AJTs after all is to improve the flying skills of pilots who are trained on basic sub-sonic aircraft and then assigned directly to MiGs that fly at supersonic speeds. That this is a completely unacceptable way of training pilots is both indisputable and widely acknowledged. As early as 1982, the La Fontaine Committee had pointed out that there was a significant correlation between the number of accidents and training procedures. The Committee had observed that the lack of an operational transitional trainer aircraft required pilots to make a quantum leap in skill and judgment when they were moved to operational craft. This view has been echoed over and over again by those both within and outside the Air Force. In 1995, the Defence Minister even wrote to the then Prime Minister stressing that the lack of AJTs was the main reason for accidents due to human error and that pilots trained on the Kiran/Iskra platforms faced enormous difficulties on converting to the much more sophisticated MiG-21s.

The IAF's accident record is truly dismal. With accidents occurring so thick and fast, its safety record is regarded as one of the worst in the world. IAF crashes have become so routine that the loss of a plane or two no longer even attracts big headlines. It was only earlier this month that two MiGs went down in close succession, the first near a village in Ludhiana (killing four) and the second in a residential area of Ambala. Such crashes have involved various kinds of aircraft but the statistics show that the most vulnerable aircraft is the MiG-21, first inducted in the 1950s and still very much the backbone of the Air Force. During the course of last year, the IAF lost as many as 16 aircraft, 12 of them MiG-21s. Quite astonishingly, the IAF has lost over 180 MiGs over the last decade through non-combat crashes. Pilot error of course is not the only reason for such crashes, which often occur due to poor maintenance and non-technical causes such as bird hits, but they are responsible for a sizeable percentage of the crashes.

Against this background, the question is not whether we need AJTs but whether we can afford to delay their purchase and induction any longer. It was only a couple of years ago that India seemed close to clinching a deal with British Aerospace for the purchase of 66 Hawk AJTs when the decision-making authorities began looking more closely at a cheaper variant, the Czech L159B. Although a couple of other models are still formally in the fray, the British and Czech trainers have been clearly identified as the frontrunners. Signing a defence contract of this magnitude requires keeping a number of factors in mind, making delicate comparisons and poring over the fine print. But New Delhi has already consumed an inordinately long time in the process of selection. Putting pilots through their paces on obsolescent trainers has lost too many aircraft and too many lives and it would be criminal to hold up the AJT acquisition much longer.

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