JOIN USMi17V5 reliable platform that the IAF has been using since 2012
The Mi17V5 helicopter that crashed in the Nilgiri hills of Tamil Nadu on Wednesday with Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat as one of the passengers, is a workhorse that the Indian Air Force is using for more than eight years after their induction in 2012.
Despite five accidents including three fatal ones, the Russian origin choppers, an upgrade of Mi-17 in the medium-lift category, are considered extremely reliable.
“For the past six decades, the Mi series helicopters were the mainstay of the IAF. The latest version (Mi17V5) is a very reliable one and the pilots swear by its ruggedness. Because of its extremely good safety records, it is used by the IAF Communication Squadron, which ferries the President and the prime minister,” Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur (rtd), a former helicopter pilot, told DH.
In 2008, India signed an agreement with Russia to induct 80 Mi-17 V5 helicopters at a cost of $1,345 million for strengthening IAF’s helicopter fleet for high altitude air maintenance, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief mission and transport operations.
The Mi17V5 has a glass cockpit variant; the first of its kind to get inducted into the IAF. It has onboard weather radar, state of the art autopilot and is compatible with the Gen-III night vision goggles because of which it can undertake all-weather day and night operations in any kind of terrain. The helicopter in which General Rawat and his team were flying was a part of the first 2008 contract for 80 Mi-17V-5 medium-lift helicopters.
Experts tracking military aviation said there were five Mi17V5 accidents in the last nine years including two fatal ones in June 2013 near north of Gaurikund in Uttarakhand and in October, 2017 at Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh. In both cases, weather played a crucial role in the crash. The third fatal incident was the infamous friendly fire episode in February 2019. The remaining two were hard landings with no fatality.
A detailed investigation would now be carried out to ascertain the root cause behind the Coonoor crash. “Till then it’s better not to speculate,” added Air Vice Marshal Bahadur.
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