6 days after ALH crash, entire fleet of 330 copters grounded

Six days after an Indian Coast Guard Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) crashed, manufacturer Hindustan Aeronautics Limited has asked all operators to ground the entire fleet of 330 choppers until the cause of the accident was identified and remedial measures taken.

The crash had occurred at Porbandar (Gujarat) on January 5, killing all three Coast Guard personnel on board. Apart from the 330 helicopters being operated by the Air Force, Army, Navy and the Coast Guard, some private firms too fly the ALH.

Setback for armed forces

Armed forces rely heavily on Advanced Light Helicopters for search and rescue, casualty evacuation and troop transport

Developed by HAL, the ALH is a versatile, twin-engine utility helicopter designed for both military and civilian roles

In service since 2002, it is widely used by the armed forces for carrying supplies in the Himalayas

Sources said the preliminary analysis of the crashed helicopter’s flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder indicated that the pilots lost control of the ALH three to four seconds before the accident. The exact cause, however, is still under investigation. A team of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited had been assessing the cause of the crash and its report would decide the next course of action, the sources said.

This is the second major issue related to the ALH over the past 15 months. In October 2023, the Ministry of Defence had grounded the entire fleet and ordered a one-time check after five Army men had died in a crash near Tuting in Arunachal Pradesh.

The check was for mechanical and technical “stress points”, which included engines, rotor-blades and the “collective” control rods (a component that regulates power from the engine to both rotors—one on top of the helicopter and the other at the tail).

In mid-2024, the HAL had initiated an upgrade to improve the ALH airworthiness, replacing the “collective” control rods.

The January 5 crash was the second such incident for the Coast Guard’s ALH fleet in four months. Three of its four personnel had died in a crash in September last year when the helicopter they were in fell into the Arabian Sea some 45 km off Porbandar while undertaking a medical evacuation mission on board an Indian flagged merchant vessel, MV Hari Leela.