Navy joins search for ALH pilot missing in Arabian Sea, divers on standby
The Indian Navy has joined the search for the missing pilot of a coast guard Dhruv advanced light helicopter (ALH Mk-III) that went down in the Arabian Sea on September 2.
The Indian Navy has joined the search for the missing pilot of a coast guard Dhruv advanced light helicopter (ALH Mk-III) that went down in the Arabian Sea near Porbandar on September 2, and deployed two ships capable of detecting, identifying and imaging objects on the seafloor, and launching remotely operated underwater vehicles, officials aware of the matter on Thursday.
“Specialist divers of the navy and coast guard have also been put on standby to retrieve the pilot and helicopter debris,” said one of the officials, who asked not to be named.
The depth of the sea in the area is around 60 metres.
The missing pilot, 38-year-old Commandant Rakesh Rana, is the commanding officer of the coast guard’s Porbandar-based 835 Squadron to which the ALH belonged, and has logged over 1,900 flying hours. Rescuers earlier found the pilot’s seat missing from the multi-mission helicopter, which is now floating inverted. It was dislodged by impact and the nose of the severely damaged ALH is missing too.
A team of experts from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), which has designed and developed the ALH, has reached Porbandar as search crews attempt to recover the ALH’s cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) to help investigators determine what caused the twin-engine helicopter to crash, said a second official, who also asked not to be named.
The first device records radio transmissions and sounds in the cockpit, while the FDR captures data related to parameters such as speed, altitude and heading.
The ALH was carrying four personnel, including two pilots and two flight divers. On September 3, the coast guard recovered the bodies of the co-pilot, Deputy Commandant Vipin Babu, and diver Karan Singh, and rescued the other flight diver.
“Five coast guard ships and a few aircraft have been searching for the missing pilot for three days. Now INS Makar, which is equipped with a side-scan sonar for seabed imaging, and SCI Sabarmati, which can launch remotely operated underwater vehicles, have also joined the mission,” said a third official. The navy has leased Sabarmati from the Shipping Corporation of India.
The doomed helicopter, Tail No. CG 863, was launched on the night of September 2 for a medical evacuation mission following an emergency on board a merchant tanker, and ditched into the sea 15 minutes later at about 11.15pm. Ditching refers to an aircraft making an emergency landing in water.
The same helicopter was recently at the centre of the rescue and relief work in flood-ravaged Gujarat.
The coast guard has grounded its ALH fleet for safety checks with a focus on the flying controls and transmission system, as first reported by HT on September 4. Preliminary information revealed that the helicopter went into the sea nose down.
“Request call for One Time Check (OTC) on ICG Dhruv fleet prior next flight and forward aircraft wise outcome to the Coast Guard Headquarters,” said a September 3 letter addressed to all coast guard units, HAL and Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification (CEMILAC). “Prior next flight” here means that the safety inspection must be carried out before further ALH operations.
The scope of the inspection is extensive and covers several crucial safety aspects.
“(A) Safety, security, integrity and crack detection checks of following: (i) Main drive flexible shaft and its attachments, (ii) Main and tail rotor assemblies, (iii) Upper and lower control systems including freedom of movement with hydraulic trolley, (iv) Roll, pitch, collective and tail rotor actuators including leakages. (B): Tail rotor blades 20-point check,” the letter said.
The latest incident comes at a time when a critical safety upgrade on the military’s ALH fleet, initiated by HAL after a string of accidents last year, has been completed and the upgraded control system installed on the helicopters is expected to improve their airworthiness.
The ALH fleet, plagued by a nagging design issue, was grounded several times last year after the accidents called into question its flight safety record.
This led to a comprehensive design review of the helicopter’s booster control rods followed by a drive to replace the flaw-ridden existing ones with new rods in each ALH. The armed forces operate around 330 ALHs.
These rods allow pilots to control the helicopter’s motion, and any failure can severely affect power input to the rotor blades and cause accidents.
Replacement of the collective control rod and the other two rods (lateral and longitudinal) has been completed on all the ALHs. The new rods are made of steel instead of aluminium.
The helicopter has been involved in at least 13 accidents during the last five years. HT highlighted the design issue and steps taken to fix it in a series of stories last year.
The Bengaluru-based CEMILAC, a top government regulatory body responsible for the certification and airworthiness of military aircraft, ordered the design review in April 2023.