Hell of a ride: In 7 years, 36 people died in Pawan Hans copter crashes

Times of India: Mumbai: Monday, January 15, 2018.

There is no global data on accident rates of major helicopter operators, but had there been one, then the government-owned Pawan Hans would undoubtedly be up there for having a high number of air crashes. In the past seven years, accidents involving Pawan Hans helicopters, including Saturday's when a chopper crashed with ONGC executives, have claimed 36 lives .

In a span of three years (2014 to 2016), Pawan Hans had 38 "incidents", according to information sourced from Pawan Hans through RTI by an activist, who requested anonymity. In aviation, an incident is an occurrence that could affect aircraft safety. For instance: engine failure in a twin-engine aircraft that managed to land safely, with no major injury or damage to man or machine, is as an incident. The highest number of incidents was 17 in 2016, though number of flights operated per year came down from 1.06 lakh in 2014 to 78,856.

"A high incident rate is an indicator of poor safety culture. It's never a result of failings of one department or a section of people," said a senior helicopter commander. Another question is, how diligent has the company been in reporting the incidents to the aviation regulator. An audit by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation at Pawan Hans's Andaman and Nicobar base last year showed several engineering and maintenance deficiencies. A Pawan Hans official said, "The company has been slow in responding to the findings. There's a certain stupor that has descended especially after the government announced its decision to privatize the company."

Pawan Hans has 43 aircraft (now 42), with 32 of them being Dauphins. The Dauphins have been involved in a majority of crashes and incidents in the past decade, the official added. "It's like the Agusta Westland crashes that Pawan Hans had in the 1980s. After a spate of crashes, Westlands were pulled out of its fleet in 1991," he added.

The last two years have been rather good for the company, with no fatal accident. But Saturday's crash has ended that safe run. The company had a similar pattern early this decade. In 2011, 24 people, including then Arunachal Pradesh CM Dorjee Khandu, were killed in two crashes within a span of ten days in April. Though Pawan Hans helicopters continued to crash over the next two years, there were no fatalities till August 2015 when three were killed in the North East.