India
Durante un entrenamiento de vuelo un caza MiG-29K de la Armada India dañó el tren de aterrizaje delantero al apontar en el portaviones INS Vikramaditya...
... los aviones despegaron de la base aeronaval en Goa...
... y aterrizaron en la cubierta del INS Vikramaditya...
Safety scare on Gorshkov
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SUJAN DUTTA
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New Delhi, June 4: A new fighter jet of the Indian Navy was partly damaged after a “hard landing” on the deck of the INS Vikramaditya today, less than a month after the aircraft carrier was declared “fully operational”.
The carrier — earlier called Admiral Gorshkov — and the aircraft were bought with a lot of taxpayer money and after years of delay.
The incident calls to question a history of tardiness in procurement of weapons-platforms, combined with challenges thrown to Arun Jaitley, who has succeeded A.K. Antony as defence minister.
Antony was the longest-serving defence minister. There were more recorded mishaps in his tenure than in any other minister’s, barring V.K. Krishna Menon’s in 1962.
Navy sources described today’s incident as a “hard landing” to distinguish it from a crash. The nose wheel of the jet, a MiG29K — also procured from Russia like the Vikramaditya — is said to have been partly damaged. The MiG29K has tandem cockpits. Both pilots are safe, navy sources said.
The incident happened off the coast of Goa late this afternoon. The aircraft had taken off from the INS Hansa naval air station at Dabolim, where it is shore-based, and was to land on the Vikramaditya in manoeuvres that the vessel and its aircraft have been engaged in since May 7. That was when navy chief Admiral Robin Dhowan announced the carrier was fully operational with its combat aircraft integrated.
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