India's frontline Sukhoi-30MKI will take to the skies again on Saturday after a month of the fighter fleet being grounded following a crash near Pune on October 14.
Air Headquarters gave “an all clear signal“ to its operational commands around the country to resume flight operations after systematic checks on the entire fleet of 195 twin-seat Sukhois were completed. But doubts still persist over the serviceability of the fighter fleet, which is down to just 55% due to engine problems, shoddy maintenance, poor availability and management of spares. This, in effect, means just about 100 Sukhois are ready at any given time to go to war. The Sukhoi fleet has been grounded in the past also after crashes in April 2009 and December 2011.
The Russian experts taking part in the CoI maintain the jet's tandem K-36DM “zero-zero“ ejection seats which allow pilots to eject safely even from zero altitude at zero speed -could not have “fired“ automatically . Incidentally , this is the third such instance of malfunctioning ejection seats in the Indian Sukhoi fleet since 2008.
Whatever the exact reason for the crash, experts say India and Russia as well as IAF and Hindustan Aeronautics should come together to resolve all problems because of the sheer criticality of the Sukhois for maintaining effective deterrence against both China and Pakistan.
This becomes all the more necessary since IAF is grappling with just 34 fighter squadrons when 44 are required. Moreover, ageing MiG-21s and MiG-27s constitute 14 of those 34 squadrons.
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