The Hindu Business Line : Is the risk too high?

In recent times there have been quite a few air crashes of smaller, chartered aircraft, which raise the question on what needs to be done to make such flights safer.

With increase in the number of corporate dons using personal aircraft, air accidents do occur, and India has seen its share of accidents, some of them fatal.

Former Minister for Civil Aviation, Madhav Rao Scindia died in one and former Lok Sabha Speaker G.M.C. Balayogi in another. The Chairman of the UB Group, Vijay Mallaya, who was recently travelling by a helicopter, which came down, was luckier and lived to tell the tale.

So can these crashes be prevented by proper maintenance? No aircraft is allowed to fly without an air-worthiness certificate.

While there is no thumb rule as to what leads to accidents involving aircraft, the simplest way of understanding the issue is to remember that an aircraft is after all a machine which requires regular and rigorous maintenance and proper care.

Just as a vehicle, which if not properly looked after, can develop snags, so also an aircraft that is poorly maintained will fall into disrepair, often with dire consequences. Just as any vehicle manufacturer provides a schedule of regular checks and maintenance, so do the manufacturers of aircraft. But since this schedule is based on world standards or requirements it is invariably modified to suit Indian conditions.

"The manufacturer provides a global criterion for an aircraft. The local airworthiness agency has to look into it and cannot take what the manufacturers states as gospel truth for the aircraft," says a retired senior Government official from the aviation sector.

A case in point is the work that the Indian regulatory authorities did when one of the two state-owned airlines received some new aircraft in the 1990s. These new aircraft had equipment on board which was not suited to function in some Indian cities where the day temperatures can soar. Soon, the obvious happened, the mechanism started giving problems, and it was left to the Indian regulatory authorities to make appropriate changes to ensure smooth functioning of the aircraft.

Besides, airworthiness officials point out that "in service-experience" is necessary to update the maintenance schedule of the aircraft, as this would enable detection of "under-maintained" or "over-maintained" equipment. In layman's terms, this means ensuring that wear and tear of the equipment doesn't exceed or fall behind the prescribed time of usage. In addition, there are mandatory requirements to change certain aircraft component not only after a certain number of hours but also after a certain number of flights. These changes have to be carried out irrespective of whether the aircraft is big or small and whether it has been flown or not.

After a spate of accidents, the Government has set up a high-powered committee to look into the issue of crashes of aircraft, which recommendsa series of guidelines to prevent mishaps from happening.

But the key question is that if there are such strict guidelines for safety of aircraft in the country, why is it that there are so many fatal air crashes. Officials are quick to point out that accidents, involving aircraft, occur not only in India but also in other parts of the world. However, there is a perception that while larger airlines and operators have separate departments to look after different aspects of aircraft safety, and therefore have more checks and balances on the job at hand, this may not be the case with the smaller operators who may have one department to look after.

To make flights by small aircraft even safer, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has mandated on the basis of an International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) requirement that small aircraft having less than 20-seats must install an Airborne Collision Avoidance System popularly called ACAS by 2005.

But is it safe to travel in any aircraft? Industry experts hasten to point out that more people die in road accidents than in air crashes. But then one can argue that there are many, many more cars and other vehicles on the roads than aircraft in the sky!

Recognising the latent demand for air connectivity from smaller towns, several leading domestic airlines provide air services to these cities. While the privately owned Jet Airways and Sahara use the 50-seater ATR and CRJ aircraft to provide air links to the smaller towns, the State-owned Indian Airlines uses the ATR-42-500 aircraft to serve as lifeline for the people in the north-eastern region of the country.

Similarly, Pawan Hans Helicopters Limited (PHHL) is a lifeline for the people in several States including Lakshwadeep, where helicopters have helped the Administration save precious lives. Here they are used as ambulances for evacuation of serious patients from different islands to Karavati and Kochi.

But probably the best example of how safe it is to fly by small aircraft or helicopters can be found in the flying record of PHHL. Since October 1986, its helicopters have flown 3,20,000 hours, landed more than 1.2 million times and carried more than 5.2 million passengers.

No doubt that the PHHL has had its share of mishaps - six mishaps since October 1986, which have claimed six crew members and 24 passengers.

While this will be cold comfort for the families, which lost their loved ones, it goes a long way in showing the safety track record of the carrier and probably the industry, as well.

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