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In a unique transplant operation, organs were transported using a Sukhoi Su 30 from Pune to Delhi. Acting with great precision and planning several agencies in Pune collaborated to ensure that a kidney and a liver reached patients awaiting transplants at Delhi.

It all started with Lalita Sarvade’s son Ganesh taking the decision of donating his mother’s organs. The 45-year-old housewife had suffered a head injury in a road accident on July 18 and was admitted to Armed Forces Medical College and Command Hospital (Southern Command), Pune. On July 26, she was declared brain dead by an authorised panel of doctors, after which her son decided to donate her organs.

As soon as the decision was conveyed, a team of surgeons at the hospital swung into action. Cops at Wanowrie police station too did their best. Since the donation needed a lot of legal paperwork, the cops acted swiftly and ensured that all legal formalities were completed without any delay. Next, the surgeons at the Command Hospital retrieved the organs. Simultaneously, traffic police in Pune were alerted that some of the organs would be transported to the Airport so that they can be sent to Delhi.

The traffic cops created a green corridor from Wanowrie, where the Command Hospital is located, to the Airport. The vehicle carrying the organs reached the Airport in eight minutes.


Once at the Airport, the Indian Air Force (IAF), which had already been alerted, loaded the organs onto a Sukhoi Su 30. The fastest fighter jet with the IAF took off from Pune at 11.20 pm and reached Delhi at 40 minutes past mid night.

The organs, which included a liver and a kidney, were to be transplanted in two patients already admitted at the Army Hospital (R and R) in New Delhi. The liver was meant for an ex-serviceman and the kidney was to go to son of a serving Sergeant in IAF. According to an official release, the two patients at Delhi were in urgent need of transplants and in last stages of liver and kidney diseases. At the time of going to press, both the transplants were said to be successful.

Meanwhile, back in Pune, an autopsy on the body of Lalita Sarvade was conducted at AFMC at 4.30 am on Monday. Her mortal remains were then transported to her home for last rites.

Sarvade’s other organs too will be utilised in near future. One kidney has been shared with the local Zonal Transplant Coordination Committee and allocated to Pune Hospital. Both corneas have also been harvested and kept in the Eye Bank, awaiting transplantation.

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US firm’s decision comes over HAL’s ‘poor quality’ of production
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| New Delhi | July 30, 2015 10:16 AM

Boeing has over the last few years shifted its component sourcing requirements in India to private companies — Tata Group, Dynamatic Technologies, Rossell Techsys and others. (Photo: Reuters)
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US defence major Boeing has terminated a contract with state-run Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) for component supplies to the former’s war and commercial planes being inducted into the Indian Navy.

Boeing’s decision came after repeated reminders to HAL about its “poor quality” of production, sources said, adding that the US company’s move underlined the need for better strategies by India’s policymakers in order to bolster the order books of defence PSUs.

Boeing has over the last few years shifted its component sourcing requirements in India to private companies — Tata Group, Dynamatic Technologies, Rossell Techsys and others.

Under a $4.7-million contract signed with Boeing in 2010, HAL was to provide weapons bay doors for eight P-8I long-range maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft that the former would supply to the Indian Navy.

The contract with HAL for equipment for the P8I, through its avionics division in Hyderabad, was the first P-8I offset package that Boeing had directly executed with India’s largest aerospace company. In addition to its work on the P-8I programme, HAL was to also supply Boeing with gun bay doors and wire harnesses for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and uplock boxes for the 777 commercial airplane.

Boeing refused to comment for this story, while senior HAL officials said although “there were problems” (with the Boeing contract), these would be resolved.

“Boeing is already working with multiple companies in India to fulfil its commitments. We are actively working global sourcing strategies that can help make Boeing more competitive around the world, in addition to building India’s aerospace capabilities and meeting our offset commitments,” Dennis Swanson, vice-president of Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS) in India, had told FE in an interview earlier.

Industry sources have indicated that since 2014, Boeing has been expressing its dissatisfaction with HAL’s performance and has moved to other firms to meet its requirements. For instance, Dynamatic Technologies and Tata Advanced Materials (TAML) are delivering power and mission equipment cabinets for P-8I aircraft, and TAML is also on contract to provide P-8I auxiliary power unit door fairings. Dynamatic Technologies is on contract to manufacture the aft pylon and cargo ramp assemblies for Boeing’s CH-47F Chinook. Maini and TAL Manufacturing Solutions are on contract to provide C-17 ground support equipment to Boeing.

Boeing is interested in setting up a manufacturing base in India under the ‘

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’ programme. It has recently inked a framework agreement with Tata Advanced Systems to collaborate in aerospace and defence manufacturing and potential integrated systems development opportunities, including unmanned aerial vehicles.

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If you too believe that MiG 21s are nothing but ‘widow-makers’, meet air commodore Surendra Singh Tyagi, who flew not only the controversial Mikoyan-Gurevich (MiG) 21the most, but also MiG 23, 27 & 29, Jaguar and Canberra and survived to tell his hair-raising tales.

Recalling an incident from October 1978, he said how a technical fault made his plane drop from the air at close to 400 km/hour and he had to crash land. “It immediately occurred to me that to reduce the impact and survive, I had to turn it to the side soon as I hit the ground. I did just that and here I am talking about it today! In fact, I flew more after this incident, than before it,” Tyagi said.


To his credit Tyagi made 6,316 sorties aboard the MiG 21, popularly dubbed the ‘flying coffin’. Looking back at his long, illustrious and decorated

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spanning over 33 years as an

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(IAF) pilot, Tyagi claims he has cheated death for 4,003 of the 8,000 total flight hours he has logged.

To translate these flight hours into days, Tyagi flew 333 days in total, of which nearly 167 days were spent flying the MiG! The airman spent the maximum flight hours on the particular aircraft, ever, and long enough to create a record, before he hung his boots as station commander of the IAF base at Jamnagar in 1999.

Tyagi’s achievement was acknowledged by the global head of operations for MiG, Russia. The felicitation took place on April 20, when the IAF was celebrating 50 years of the MiG 21 aircraft’s service to the nation.

“I would rather live and serve my country, than die and leave my service to the nation incomplete. Those who die are called martyrs, but I believe that those who brave the odds deserve similar respect too,” said Tyagi, who took 28 postings including the fighter squadrons at Bareli and Jodhpur as well as station commander at Naliya, Kutch.

Dispelled myths about MiG 21 being ‘flying coffins’, he said the ‘economies of scale’ worked against the MiG, lending it the disrepute. “In IAF, we gauge safety of a fighter aircraft based on accident rate, which is calculated in terms of accidents per 10,000 flying hours. This rate, at under 0.7 for the most current MiG – the Bison – is no longer alarming as compared with average accident rate for all aircraft deployed by the air force,” he said.

“Earlier, MiG used to comprise nearly 65% of IAF fleet and two of three planes flown are MiGs. Therefore, it registered more crashes than others. Also, most of them were used as training aircraft, in which the chances of human error are higher,” he explained.

Post retirement, Tyagi heads the Jamnagar chapter of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach) as well as being regional head of Rashtriya Sainik Sanstha.

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Zool said:

I think this is a window into some of the troubles the Rafale contract ran into, particularly the requirement India had for Dassault accountability for work done by Indian defence establishments:

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After having failed to achieve the required thrust to power Light Combat Aircraft, the indigenously developed Kaveri engine will now be used to power Indian Unmanned Combat Aircraft, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has said.

In a written reply to Rajya Sabha, Parrikar said the total expenditure incurred on development of Kaveri engine so far is Rs 2,101 crore.

“Aero engine developed by DRDO has not achieved the required thrust to power Light Combat Aircraft (LCA). Therefore, it has been decided to use Kaveri derivative engine (“dry” engine) for powering Indian Unmanned Combat Aircraft,” he said.

The project for development of Kaveri engine was sanctioned in 1989 with probable date of completion in 1996, which was extended to 2009. Government has further approved its continuation within the cost ceiling.

The major reasons for non-completion of project within the time-schedule were technological difficulties faced due to complexities of engine system, non-availability of raw materials, critical components, lack of infrastructure, manufacturing and test facilities within the country, Parrikar said.

Non-availability of skilled or technical manpower in the field of aero-engine technology and increase in scope during development were also some of the reasons, he said.

Following milestones were achieved from Kaveri engine Project

Successful completion of 73 hours High Altitude testing and 57 hours trial on Flying Test Bed have proved level of technological capability and maturity.

> Full Authority Digital Engine Control System has been designed, developed and qualified indigenously.

> Twelve materials have been indigenously developed and type certified.

> Total of 9 Kaveri prototypes and 4 Kaveri Core Engine prototypes have been developed and accumulated more than 2550 hours of engine testing.

> Kaveri Engine was integrated with IL-76 Aircraft and flight tested.

> Tacit knowledge acquired by the scientists are being applied in aerospace technology and other disciplines.

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The naval harbour here has become the first in the country to get a top-notch defence system — which will enable operators to foresee, and respond to, surface and sub-surface threats to vital assets along the harbour and warships in the quay.

As first reported by The Hindu in September last year, the Integrated Underwater Harbour Defence and Surveillance System (IUHDSS), a state-of-the-art automated system capable of detecting, identifying, tracking and generating warning for surface and underwater threats, was commissioned by Vice-Admiral Sunil Lanba, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Southern Naval Command, on Friday.

The system, comprising a cluster of coastal surveillance radars, high-power underwater sensors and diver detection sonars, was designed by Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) ELTA.

In other harbours too

Besides Kochi, naval harbours at Mumbai, Visakhapatnam and Port Blair are slated to be equipped with the system as a force protection measure. The multi-agency Joint Operations Centre (JOC), set up at these places to coordinate coastal security operations, will receive real-time images relayed by these sensors and the command and control of the operations launched in response to threats will vest with the coastal defence Commanders-in-Chief – Flag Officers Commanding-in-Chief of the three naval commands and the Commander-in-Chief of the Andaman and Nicobar joint services command.

The project is said to cost around Rs 270 crore, said sources.

Similar coastal defence systems are deployed at 150 locations across the world. In India, the decision to cast a network of electro-optical sensors, thermal imaging sensors, radar and high-definition underwater sensors around naval jetties was taken in the aftermath of 26/11 with a view to strengthening security around the coast and high-value naval assets.

A naval spokesperson said the IUHDSS, along with the specialised Sagar Prahari Bal, would help augment security of the coast around the naval installations in Kochi. “The system was contracted by the Integrated Headquarters of Ministry of Defence in 2012. The system will operate under the control of the Naval Officer-in-Charge (Kerala),” a defence communication said.

The multi-agency Joint Operations Centre (JOC) set up in coastal States to coordinate coastal security operations

The IUHDSS will relay images to the multi-agency Joint Operations Centre (JOC)

The multi-agency Joint Operations Centres (JOC) at these naval locations “There is already the specialised Sagar Prahari Bal ensuring security of vital naval installations and assets stationed along the coast. The underwater sensor network will help neutralise asymmetric sub-surface threats,” said a source.

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India's state-owned Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) has launched the 17th Aadesh-class fast patrol vessel on order for the Indian Coast Guard (ICG), the company announced on 30 July.

The 50 m vessel was laid on 11 June and has been named ICGS Arush . CSL was awarded an INR15 billion (USD234 million) contract in 2010 to build 20 fast patrol vessels in an effort to bolster the ICG's maritime surveillance and constabulary capabilities.

According to IHS Jane's Fighting Ships , the Aadesh-class vessels are each armed with one 30 mm CRN-91 naval gun supported with an electro-optical fire control system supplied by Bharat Electronics as its main weapon and two 12.7 mm machine guns for point defence.

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