Indian air force Hercules plane crashes during training mission killing all five crew members in central India
- Cargo plane was one of six bought from Lockheed-Martin three years ago
- India's air force chief dismisses suggestion crash was due to pilot error
- The country is the world's biggest arms importer
Five Indian airmen died today when their Hercules cargo plane fell out of the sky during a training mission in the heart of the south Asian country.
The C-130J Hercules plane plummeted to the ground near a village in Madhya Pradesh state, 72 miles west of Gwalior air base, sparking an emergency rescue mission.
But when air force personnel, police and firefighters reached the scene they found that all those on board had perished in the crash.
Tragic: Indian villagers crowd around the debris of an Indian air force cargo plane that crashed while on a training mission near the
village of Karauli in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh today
Expensive: The plane that crashed was one of six C-130J aircraft that India bought from U.S. arms company Lockheed-Martin at a cost
of £1.1billion three years ago
It is the latest in a series of accidents that have hit the Indian military, which has embarked on a modernisation programme that has made the country the world's biggest arms importer.
The plane that crashed was one of six C-130J aircraft that India bought from U.S. arms company Lockheed-Martin at a cost of £1.1billion three years ago.
Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha told the Associated Press that the plane had been used in tough situations since then, including rescuing people from floods in the Himalayan foothills and landing in harsh terrain on the border with China.
India also sent two C-130J planes to participate in the search for a Malaysia Airlines plane lost in the southern Indian Ocean. It was not immediately clear if the plane that crashed had been involved in the search.
Marshal Raha, who is head of India's air force, dismissed the possibility that the crash might have been the result of a mistake by a pilot. 'Needless to say, the best pilots have been chosen to fly these aircraft,' he said.
Sameer Patil, a security expert with the Indian Council on Global Relations, a Mumbai-based think tank, said the crash would be a major setback for the Indian air force.
'After years of delay, the fleet is undergoing expansion in critical airlift capabilities. Hence, a loss such as this is particularly worrisome,' said Patil.
India has become the world's biggest arms importer as it pushes to modernize its military and replace its obsolete Soviet-era weapons.
The purchases were also spurred by crashes of almost 55 per cent of its frontline MiG fleet acquired from the former Soviet Union.
'The best pilots have been chosen to fly these aircraft': Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha, head of India's air force, dismissed the possibility
that the crash might have been the result of a mistake by a pilot
An Indian air force helicopter buzzes around the wreck of the plane, which had been in service for three years
The Hercules crash today comes after navy chief Admiral D.K. Joshi resigned last month to take responsibility for a string of accidents at sea.
Days later, a gas leak on a destroyer being built at a Mumbai dockyard killed a navy commander and sickened two workers.
Last August, another Russian-made diesel-powered submarine caught fire after an explosion and sank at port in Mumbai, killing all 18 sailors on board.
In December, the INS Talwar, a Russian-built stealth frigate, slammed into a trawler off India's west coast, sinking the boat and tossing 27 fishermen into the sea. All of the fishermen were rescued.
Another navy frigate ran aground near the Mumbai naval base in January, damaging some equipment. And the INS Airavat, an amphibious warfare vessel, ran aground earlier last month.
With national elections starting in less than two weeks, opponents were quick to attack the government for the accidents, saying it had to investigate if there was any negligence involved.
'This is absolutely a shocking incident,' said Prakash Javadekar, spokesman of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.
'The Hercules is such a sturdy aircraft it doesn't meet with such kind of accidents. The government needs to own responsibility for this state of affairs,' he told reporters.
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