NEW DELHI: Three Coast Guard personnel were killed after their ‘Dhruv’ advanced light helicopter (ALH) crashed at Porbandar in Gujarat on Sunday afternoon, raising questions once again about the indigenous twin-engine choppers that have been grounded a few times after a string of accidents earlier.
The ALH Mark-III chopper was returning from a routine training sortie when it reportedly developed some technical snag while landing at the Coast Guard Air Enclave in Porbandar, and crashed at about 12.15 pm. The two pilots – Commandant Saurabh and Deputy Commandant S K Yadav – and air crew diver Manoj Pradhan Navik were pulled out of the burning helicopter and rushed to the govt hospital. “But they succumbed to their injuries. A board of inquiry will investigate the reasons leading to the crash,” an official said.
The incident comes after another ALH of the Coast Guard crashed into the Arabian Sea during a medical evacuation operation in Sept last year, leading to the death of the two pilots and an aircrew diver. The entire fleet of around 330 ALHs in the armed forces were grounded a few times in 2023 after four major accidents.
The helicopter-manufacturer defence PSU Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) had then undertaken safety technical upgrades after cases of design and metallurgical flaws, including “failure of the collective”, which controls the power to the rotors and back, were reported in the choppers.
First, a weaponised ALH version called Rudra had crashed in Arunachal Pradesh in Oct 2022, killing two officers and three soldiers. Then, there were two back-to-back ALH crashes in March 2023. In May that year, another ALH Mark-III of the Army had gone down in J&K’s Kishtwar district, killing a soldier and grievously injuring the two pilots.
The crashes had led to calls for a comprehensive inquiry into the problems plaguing the chopper fleet because the ALHs are the workhorses of the armed forces and critical in the ongoing push for self-reliance in defence production. Moreover, India also wants to export the 5.5-tonne chopper in greater numbers in the years ahead.
