New Delhi, Oct. 19: Five Indian Air Force planes have been grounded in Ukraine where they had been sent for a refit and upgrade. The five Antonov 32 aircraft — the last batch of 40 from the IAF’s fleet of about a 100 — were to be delivered by Ukraine in August.
The AN32 aircraft is integral to the daily operations of the IAF, transporting troops, materiel and dropping rations and stores at high altitude posts as well as being deployed for search and rescue during natural disasters.
But Ukraine’s continuing troubles with Russia are now threatening to hit the Indian military hard. The IAF has taken the first blow.
The upgrade of the aircraft is stuck because Russia has refused to supply some of the components that are to be fitted in the aircraft.
Under a 2009 agreement between the Indian Air Force and Kiev-based SpetsTechnoExport, the Ukrainian firm was contracted to give the workhorse of the IAF’s transport fleet a “total technical life extension” that would keep the aircraft flying beyond 2025.
The upgraded aircraft, designated the AN32RE, were to be given a modified cockpit, newer avionics and noise and vibration reducing technologies. Forty of the aircraft were to be modernised in Ukraine and the remaining in India.
According to the original schedule, the upgrades in Ukraine were to be completed by March this year. Kiev requested and was permitted to alter the schedule to August. Now, Ukraine has missed that deadline as well.
The AN32s were procured by India in the 1980s. The upgrade programme, initially estimated to cost $400 million, involves a refit of major systems as well as strengthening the airframes.
In a written reply in Parliament in 2009, the then defence minister had said: “The project includes calendar life extension up to 40 years, overhaul and re-equipment of AN32 aircraft. There were no conditionalities at the time of acquisition of AN32 with the Russian government.”
When the AN32s were first contracted, Ukraine was a Soviet republic. An estimated 30 per cent of the former Soviet Republic’s military industrial complex was based in Ukraine. Since the dismantling of the Soviet Union, India has continued to depend on Ukraine not only for its Antonov aircraft but also for the supply of engines for the Indian Navy’s Delhi-class warships (destroyers).
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