All eyes on DGCA to know cause of crash.

THE DIRECTORATE General Civil Aviation ( DGCA) faces a daunting task to rummage through the debris of the Bell 430 chopper and locate its cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder to ascertain the reasons of the crash.

The UPA government has constituted a four- member inquiry committee, which will be headed by Pawan Hans Helicopters CMD R. K. Tyagi. The panel -- which will, if needed, take assistance from the Indian Air force and other experts -- will submit its report to the Centre within two months.

Aviation experts see a parallel between Wednesday's crash and another fatal accident in which RAN Air's Bell 430 crashed in Pamunur Hills of Khammam district in Andhra Pradesh in August last year.

In both the cases, the helicopters were powered by twin engines and had the capability to negotiate rough weather because they were equipped with weather radars and instrument flight rules ( IFR) kit. Pilots of both choppers were experienced.

The flights were under visual flight rules ( VFR), that allow a pilot to see through in clear weather conditions and the air traffic control ( ATC) doesn't have much say in these, unlike in IFR. However, it appears that the pilot suddenly hit a rough pocket and collided with static obstruction because of loss of visual reference.

Civil aviation minister Praful Patel suspected that YSR's chopper might have run into rough weather, bringing it down.

Could this pilot error be because of lack of training or decision making? Referring to the 2008 accident, Rotary Wing Society of India ( RWSI) president Air Vice- Marshal ( retd) M. Sreedharan said, " Though the helicopter was fitted with an IFR kit and a weather radar, it didn't have very high frequency ( VHF) communication on board.

Since the pilot could not establish VHF communication with any ATC beyond the visual range, he did not have the benefit of real time en- route weather information. If he had received the weather report of the area, he may have turned back to Hyderabad.

We feel the helicopter should be able to have communication with ground." Maximum civil helicopter fatal accidents ( total being 54) in the country from 1999 were because of loss of visual reference in flight, an expert said.

According to the RWSI, the DGCA has only one helicopter flight inspector to check, advise or investigate accidents, whereas the total number of helicopters available for commercial and non- commercial operations are around 250. There is an urgent need to increase the number of flight inspectors to at least five, with one each at all regional headquarters of the DGCA, the RWSI said.

Another expert said helicopters are not fit for bad weather and not as stable as fixed wing aircraft. In choppers, air speed indicators are unreliable during low- visibility take- offs.

WHY ELT DIDN'T FUNCTION?

The emergency local transmitter ( ELT) system- cum- beacon of YSR's chopper didn't emit a signal, which could have been picked up by a low- flying aircraft or a satellite. Wing Commander ( retd) Sanjay Mittal YSM VM said emersion of the ELT in a water body prevents any transmission from being picked up by the satellite constellation. Low batteries of the ELT can also cause generation signals.

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