Sukhoi crash: Govt admits fault in flight control system

The government’s first official clarification on the reason behind the crash flies in the face of reports that the accident was caused due to a human error when the pilot of the fighter incorrectly pulled a switch that sent the aircraft into an uncontrollable spin.

Sources said while the Russian team,which was called in to help with the investigations,was quick to give the aircraft a clean chit and put the blame on human failure,deeper investigations pointed to a fault in the flight control system.

As first reported by this newspaper,the probe had narrowed down to a possible flaw in the flight control systems that caused the aircraft to go into an uncontrollable spin. This had come as a surprise because the system has quadruple redundancy,which means that it is backed up four times. 

Antony said the Su 30 MKI is a good fighter aircraft and remedial measures were taken after the crash to make the fighters fully operational. “The issues derived from preliminary investigation after the crash were addressed. The Su 30 MKI is a modern fighter aircraft that has performed very well,” he said.

It has been almost two months since the fighter,which was on a routine sortie,crashed on April 30. The final investigation report has not yet been finalised due to difficulties in analysing data from the black box. The black box was recovered after the crash and was sent to England for forensic examination. The report is taking time as investigators are struggling to recover last minute data from the badly damaged equipment.