New Delhi: Defence minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday that the AN-32 plane of Indian Air Force (IAF) that crashed in Arunachal Pradesh killing all 13 personnel on board was completely airworthy.
“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 said in Parliament. The defence minister said that the accident rate per 10,000 flying hours in the Air Force has come down from 1.04 in 1999 to 0.33 currently. “The average accident rate has reduced from 1.04 per 10,000 flying hours in 1999 to 0.52 in 2004. This has further reduced to 0.46 in the next five years and currently the accident rate is 0.33 per 10,000 flying hours,” he said.
The defence minister said a court of inquiry had been ordered within hours of the incident.
