Home Minister Amit Shah was among the ministers who attended the meeting which comes days before the parliament session beginning June 17. (File photo)Nearly a month after the fatal crash of an Anton-32 aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) in Arunachal Pradesh, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh Monday said that the accident rate per 10,000 flying hours in the IAF has come down from 1.04 in 1999 to 0.33 in 2019. Rajnath was speaking in the Rajya Sabha during the question hour.
“The average accident rate has reduced from 1.04 per 10,000 flying hours in 1999 to 0.52 in 2004. This has further reduced to 0.46 in the next five years and currently the accident rate is 0.33 per 10,000 flying hours,” Rajnath said. Meanwhile talking about the upgradation of the An-32 fleet, he added that 52 aircraft have been upgraded.
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“As far as planes are concerned, particularly AN-32 planes, so far 52 have been upgraded, but we cannot say that those planes which have not been upgraded yet are not airworthy. It would not be fair to assume so,” he said.
The Defence Minister maintained that the An-32 aircraft that crashed was completely airworthy thus clearing its continual use in the future.The An-32, which took off from the Air Force Station in Assam's Jorhat on June 3 at 12.27 pm, never landed at the Mechuka Advanced Landing Ground in Shi Yomi district. The aircraft's last contact with ground staff was at 12.55pm. After over…
