Disclaimer
The interview was recorded on 1 May 2025, before it was announced that the Advanced Light Helicopters, Dhruvs of the Indian Army and Air Force, which had been grounded, are cleared for flying.
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Dhruv, the Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH), manufactured by HAL is in the eye of a storm with implications of all sorts. The safety of these helicopters became absolutely critical when two of these helicopters crashed recently leading to casualties. The whole fleet was grounded, irrespective of the service or organisation they were with.
All three services and the Coast Guard use these helicopters. In the last couple of years, there have been multiple accidents with these helicopters.
The issue was discussed by our Editor Brig SK Chatterji (Retd) with one of India’s leading helicopter pilots, Lt Gen BS Pawar (Retd). The relevant extracts are detailed beneath.
We are left with Cheetahs and Chetaks to undertake essential operational tasks. Can we manage with these outdated machines? These are old and they are in service today primarily due to the efforts of those who maintain them and the pilots who dare to fly them.
Because of the Pahalgam incident, limited permission of ALH being utilised for counter insurgency roles has been given. But neither is that enough nor is the problem limited to their depleted numbers.
The other major problem is of the pilots being unable to log flying hours. The training and validity of their flying licences are at stake. We hardly have any simulators to train, either. In any case, time physically spent at the controls of these flying machines is required to retain validity of their licences.
An in-depth investigation into the design of these helicopters is called for, and design issues resolved expeditiously.
We were also looking at export orders of ALH. A substantial number of potential buyers were looking at the helicopter for their forces. Such queries are bound to be affected.
The grounding of the fleet will also impact on the Light Combat Helicopter which is but a derivative of ALH. These helicopters, only a few of which are in service as of now, need to undertake tests for armaments proposed to be mounted on the LCH. The tests will suffer delays in the process.
The way forward, notwithstanding HAL’s displayed capabilities to overcome such issues in the past, would be to reconsider the Russian Kamov helicopters that at one stage, we were planning to induct, while simultaneously improving the ALH design aspects. It’s important to get design issues resolved before we attempt the manufacture of the much heavier Indian Multi Role Helicopter.
