Bisheshwar Mishra / New Delhi
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said in Rajya Sabha today that AN-32 aircraft of the Indian Air Force was absolutely airworthy. Singh said this in reply to a question asked by MP Mohammad Ali Khan who wanted to know if the said plane was airworthy enough as it had recently crashed in Anrunachal Pradesh killing all the 13 personnel on board.
Terming the accident as very unfortunate the defence minister however made it clear that there was not problem with the airworthiness of the aircraft. He said that the accident rate per 10,000 flying hours in the Air Force had come down from 1.04 in 1999 to 0.33 currently.
He informed the House that a total of 13 people lost their lives in the AN-32 plane crash. The mortal remains of all had been recovered and sent to their families. “I want to assure the House that our AN-32 fleet is airworthy and there was no problem. But this incident happened, which is very unfortunate,” he told the house.
The Defence Minister said a court of inquiry had been ordered within hours of the incident, and only after the report is was submitted, the reasons for the accident will be ascertained. In the supplementary question MP Khan had asked the minister if the government had been able to identify the cause of the accident.
“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,” the Defence Minister said and added that he will inform the House once he gets information on previous court of inquiries and the shortcomings pointed out by them.
“If there was no improvement, the rate of accidents per 10,000 flying hours would not have come down. There must have been many improvements brought about,” he said, while replying to a question on whether any steps have been taken to prevent air accidents.
He told the House that the upgradation of aircraft is a regular process and told a member that the MIG-29s would also come under it.
“The wreckage of AN-32 aircraft which went missing was located on June 11, .2019 in a place 16 km north of Lipo village in Arunachal Pradesh. All 13 personnel on board sustained fatal injuries. Every aircraft accident is analysed through a Court/Board of Inquiry and remedial measures are undertaken accordingly,” the Minister said in his written reply.
To another question, the Defence minister informed the House that a total of 6,900 war widows have been provided training so far.
A suggestion to call war widows as ‘Shaheed Patni’ was also given by BJP member Vinay Sahasrebuddhe.
Singh also said that the OROP (one rank one pension) demand of ex-servicemen was there for 40 years and the previous NDA government implemented it within a year of coming to power.