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Is the problem poor piloting or is there some shortfalls in operating the Dhruv.PC grounds Dhruv after two crashes
New Delhi, Jan. 31: Home minister P. Chidambaram today announced that the Dhruv helicopters the BSF has been operating would remain grounded "until a replacement is found", the decision coming in the wake of a series of crashes involving the utility choppers.
"Unless a replacement of Dhruv helicopters is found, we will have to do with (the air force's) Mi-17s," Chidambaram said.
The minister said he had ordered the grounding of the helicopters, part of the border force's air wing, following two crashes, one near Ranchi in October and the other near Raipur this month.
At least seven Dhruv choppers, manufactured by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and designed to meet the requirement of both military and civil operators, have crashed in recent years in India, Nepal and Ecuador.
A source in the BSF, which maintained a fleet of seven Dhruvs before the crashes near Ranchi and Raipur, said three of the remaining five had already been taken off active duty for mandatory servicing after 500 hours of flying.
The source said the BSF was waiting for a report of a probe by civil aviation regulator DGCA into the crashes. "If they are due to a generic fault, the Dhruvs will remain grounded," the source said.
The BSF official, however, did not say whether the helicopters would fly again if the fault was not generic.
Helicopters are a major tool in the Centre's scheme of logistics, especially in the Maoist-affected states. The home ministry has wet-leased six Mi-17s from a private consortium to operate in rebel-infested zones. But till these helicopters, expected to get operational sometime in February, are pressed into service, transporting security forces in central India could be a problem.
PC grounds Dhruv after two crashes
The design of the Dhruv has been in collaboration with Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) of Germany.