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Journalism of Courage
The Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has grounded the indigenous Dhruv helicopters after they were found to have some technical flaws. The helicopter is used by various state governments and the security forces fighting Maoists.
The DGCA has issued an airworthiness directive for civil variants of Advanced Light Helicopters Dhruv and asked the manufacturer,Hindustan Aeronautics Limited,to sort out the flaws. During investigations into some of the incidents of Advanced Light Helicopter Dhruv owned by defence forces,it was found that the collective eye-ends of connecting rod assembly were broken. Since an unsafe condition has been identified which is likely to develop on other ALH of similar type design,this airworthiness directive is being issued for installation of improved steel eye-ends in place of existing titanium eye-ends to achieve higher fatigue strength, the DGCA directive said.
Some time after three of its men were killed in a Dhruv crash in Ranchi in 2011,the BSF,which had acquired seven Dhruvs that were used for anti-Maoist operations,had written to the Home Ministry to replace the helicopters as they did not fulfil its operational requirement.
This,however,is not the first time airworthiness directives have been issued for Dhruv helicopters; a similar directive was issued in 2011. As and when some problems are reported we ground the entire batch of helicopters manufactured together which are then sent for an overhaul. They can be back in business only after the technical glitches have been sorted out, a senior HAL official said.
The Dhruv helicopters are also used by the ONGC for off-shore exploration and the National Disaster Management Authority for relief and rescue work.
