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BANGALORE: The Sukhoi (Su-30 MKI) that crashed near Pune on December 13 was on its first air test (fly test) after it underwent the mandatory servicing. The aircraft had already completed 400 hours of flying and had to undergo a second servicing (after every 200 hours) as per the Indian Air Force (IAF) norms.Sources in the investigation team told Express that the fighter crashed after oscillating - a rare phenomenon if the platform was not under control.“The pilots couldn’t control the aircraft and it crashed without any warning, clearly pointing towards system and quality issues,” sources said.This was the third crash of the elite Sukhoi jets of IAF, with the first one occurring on April 2009 after the pilots were suspected to have inadvertently switched-off the fly-by-wire aircraft.The second crash involving a Sukhoi took place in November 2009, with fire being reported on board the aircraft.As compared to the usual technology employed in aircraft, where mechanical linkages are used to move the control surfaces, which gives the momentum to the aircraft, in a fly-by-wire aircraft, the mechanical linkages are replaced by electrical ones.Sources in Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) said there were quality related issues with the basic design (Russian). “The issues with the design are known even to the IAF and you can’t blame HAL alone. The current crash is suspected to be a fly-by-wire malfunction and we are investigating. The flight data recorder (FDR) along with some burnt parts of the aircraft have come to Nashik. We will decode the FDR to find the exact causes,” sources said.The crashed fighter was manufactured at HAL’s Nashik division, during 2009-10 period, as part of the phase-3 production (partial raw-material, partial Russian).
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