45% of IAF air crashes due to human mistake

45% of IAF air crashes due to human mistake45% of the total Indian Air Force air crashes in the last six years were due to human mistakes. There were 74 air mishaps in between April 2004 and March 2010. The parliamentary committee has found out that almost 42% of the mishaps were due to occurrence of technical faults in the machine. But most of the time it was the human flaw which was responsible for the catastrophe.

Nearly 6% of the time the aircraft crashed due to bird hitting during flight. That means 33 crashes were due to human fault in last six years. 31 and 4 crashes by technical error and bird hit respectively.

The parliamentary committee has also reported that IAF is facing a huge shortage of trainer aircrafts and simulators. IAF's basic trainer aircraft, Hindustan Piston Trainer-32 had remained grounded for over a year.  Another trainer aircraft, Kiran Mk-II HJT-16 simulators were in disuse.

Congress MP Satpal Maharaj who lead the committee has informed that the committee has send the reports to the defence ministry and now they are expected to take steps to acquire new trainer aircraft and upgrade the simulators.