The Indian Army has grounded the entire fleet of indigenous Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) Dhruv following the crash of one of the choppers in Jammu and Kashmir.
Notably, an ALH Dhruv with three people on board crashed following a “hard landing” in Kishtwar in Jammu and Kashmir last week. A technician was killed and two pilots were injured in the incident.
As a precautionary measure, the ALH Dhruv fleet has been temporarily grounded.
Noteworthy, the entire ALH fleet in the Indian Armed Forces – 181 in Army (includes over 60 weaponised ones called ‘Rudra’), 75 in IAF, 23 in Navy and 18 in Coast Guard – have already been grounded twice for technical and safety checks since late-October last year.
The helicopters have been riddled with problems including control rod failure (affecting power input to rotor blades) and hydraulics issues.
The Dhruv ALH is a twin-engine, multi-mission helicopter in the 5.5-tonne class. ALH operations have been hit in the past too – the helicopters were grounded in 2006 following tail rotor problems, and later again in 2014 after a fatal crash.
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