Chandigarh: The fatal crash of an Indian Air Force (IAF) ground-attack legacy SEPECAT Jaguar trainer-fighter in Jamnagar earlier this week, in which its 28-year-old pilot died, yet again red-lights the enduring ordeal the force faces in sustaining its aging combat fleet to remain operationally efficient in a turbulent neighbourhood.
While flight lieutenant Siddharth Yadav died after his twin-seat Jaguar crashed on Wednesday, within minutes of taking off on a routine night training flight, his fellow pilot bailed out and is presently undergoing treatment at Jamnagar, for his injuries.
Eyewitnesses said the fateful fighter broke into pieces, all of which collectively turned into a ‘ball of fire’. According to the IAF, which has launched its mandated investigation into the accident, the pilots faced a ‘technical malfunction and initiated ejection’, but declined to elaborate.
A month earlier another Jaguar, on a similar day-training flight from its base at Ambala, near Chandigarh too had crashed in nearby Panchkula soon after take-off, following an on-board system malfunction. The pilot in this instance, managed to steer the aircraft away from populated areas before ejecting safely, and the inquiry into the crash is ongoing.
Earlier, at least six other Jaguars had crashed since late 2012, with one in 2018, also from the Jamnagar base, resulting in the death of one of the IAFs highly experienced one-star fighter pilots.
Inducted into service nearly half a century ago, the IAF is the world’s only air force that continues to operate some six squadrons of the Anglo-French twin-engine Jaguar IS/IB/IM variants, totalling around 120-odd platforms, from Ambala, Jamnagar and Gorakhpur.
Britain, Ecuador, France, Oman and Nigeria had all retired their Jaguar fighters years ago, with some on display in air museums in many of these countries.
The first batch of 40 Jaguars-christened Shamsher (meaning sword of justice) were delivered to the IAF in fly-away condition 1979 onwards and thereafter another 100-odd were licence-built by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) till 2008, via a transfer of technology.
However, from early on these Jaguars have periodically been involved in over 50 minor and major accidents, like the ones aforementioned, which IAF fighter pilots, technicians and analysts had linked to their ‘under-powered’ Rolls Royce-Turbomecca Adour Mk811 engines. These power packs lacked adequate thrust, adversely impacting the fighters overall speed, manoeuvrability and weapons carrying capabilities, amongst numerous other sundry downsides.
As an alternative, a long-negotiated option, lasting nearly a decade, by the Ministry of Defence at the IAF’s behest, to ‘re-engine’ the Jaguars with the US’s Honeywell F-125IN turbofan power pack, capable of providing the fighters with greater thrust, was scrapped in August 2109, due to the high cost of the projects.
At the time, the fighters proposed power pack replacement amounted to around Rs 1.9 billion, or $13.26 million, to re-engine each Jaguar. To this was added another Rs 200 million per aircraft for Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to reinforce each fighters’ airframe, integrate the platform with the Honeywell engine and then flight test and certify the completed platform.
A retired three-star fighter pilot associated with this ‘up-engining’ programme said the amount required was ‘far too exorbitant’ for these aging fighters. Besides, he added, declining to be named, the expense of retrofitting two second-hand Jaguars was the equivalent of acquiring a brand new combat platforms so after years of deliberation, expensive trials in the UK and related negotiations, the upgrade was eventually called off.
Furthermore, the IAF also encountered difficulty in sourcing Jaguar spare parts, as Britain and France both had stopped manufacturing the fighters in the early 1980s and HAL too had ceased building the fighters around 2008. However, in July 2018 the IAF was fortunate to have obtained an assortment of Jaguar airframes, spares and sub-assemblies from France, Oman and the UK to sustain its own substantial fleet of this fighter type for a few more years.
But despite being plagued with numerous operational hitches and a concomitant low serviceability levels of 50-60%, according to an internal IAF assessment, the legacy Jaguars continued to be ‘cossetted’ as they were integral to India’s triad of land, air and sea-launched strategic weapons, which together comprised its nuclear deterrence capability.
Accordingly, they had undergone major and expensive retrofits – depending on the operational lifespan of each platform’s airframe – to enhance, in varying degrees their stand-off attack, strike range and target acquisition capabilities via the locally-developed Display, Attack, Ranging Inertial Navigation or DARIN-I, II and III avionics suite programme.
Military analyst and retired Jaguar pilot squadron leader Vijainder K. Thakur stated that the DARIN upgrades were ‘pivotal in preserving the Jaguar’s relevance in the IAF’s overall modern aerial warfare architecture. Writing in the EurAsian Times last September, he declared that in addition to enhancing the fighters’ combat capabilities, the upgrades had better facilitated the platforms integration into the IAF’s network-centric warfare framework, resulting in more effective co-ordination with airborne early warning & control (AEW&C) platforms and ground-based air-defence systems.
Alongside, around 60 Jaguars, with durable airframes, had been shortlisted for fitment with Israel Aircraft Industries/Elta-supplied ELM-2025 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, following successful trials in August 2017. This radar was capable of tracking multiple targets, communicating in multiple frequencies via a higher bandwidth and performing ‘interleaved’ modes of operation with higher accuracy and image resolution.
IAF sources indicated that alongside the AESA radar, the Jaguars also received a pod-mounted radar jammer – the Elta ELL-8212/22/ EL-8251 – all of which collectively supplemented the DARIN-III avionics suite, keeping the Jaguar’s operationally relevant to the IAF for the next 10-14 years.
The DARIN-III also supported a range of imported and locally developed weapon systems like US-origin AGM-84L Harpoon missiles, which arm Jaguar IM maritime strike fighters, Textron CBU-105 Sensor Fused Weapons procured from the US in 2010 and the MBDA Advanced Short-Range Air-to-Air Missiles acquired in 2014.
Consequently, despite their high attrition rate, the IAF estimated that a ‘substantial’ number of the 120-odd remaining Jaguars would remain in service till 2030-32, principally to preclude a further drawdown of its fighter squadrons. These presently numbered around 29-30, some 11-12 combat squadrons fewer than the sanctioned strength of 42.5 squadrons to execute a two-front war against collusive nuclear-armed neighbors China and Pakistan. Sturdier and more robust Jaguars, however, could operate even till 2040, said Sqr Ldr Thakur, but by reducing the aircraft’s monthly flying hours in order to nurture and preserve their total technical life.
And while the IAF does not publicly disclose specific data on the monthly flying hours of any of its platforms, including Jaguars, industry sources indicated that these Anglo-French fighters needed around 20 hours of maintenance for each hour of flight. Such extensive upkeep, which multiplied with time as the platforms aged, reflected the challenges of operating an aging fighter fleet.
But in the event of the IAF continuing to operate Jaguars till 2040 or thereabouts – which presently seems more than plausible – this fighter would then have been in service with the force for some six decades, equalling the operational record of the Soviet-era MiG-21 variants, two upgraded squadrons of which were still active and up for imminent ‘number plating’ or retirement.
This leads to the immutable conclusion that the IAF, the world’s fourth largest air force, expends a major proportion of its focus and energies on upgrades and retrofits of legacy aircraft, instead of centering its resources and thinking on acquiring modern platforms, despite frantic talk of doing so.
The IAF is also the only major air force that operates seven different fighter types – Su-30MKIs, upgraded MiG-29M’s, retrofitted Mirage 2000Hs, Rafales, Jaguars and MiG-21s – rendering their maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) a tangled logistic nightmare.
Over the years, successive comptroller and auditor general (CAG) and defence parliamentary committee reports had castigated the IAF for the poor operational readiness of its platforms, especially fighters, its high rate of aircraft on ground (AoG) and limited flying hours, but to little avail. Senior IAF officers, declining to be identified, said these shortcomings were caused ‘almost exclusively’ by MRO complications which, collectively had hindered IAF attempts at evolving from a largely tactical force to a strategic one, capable of power projection and executing out-of-area exigencies. The Jaguar amply epitomised this condition.
