Kishtwar, May 4: An Aviation technician, among the three members on board a helicopter witnessing a crash in Kishtwar Thursday afternoon, has succumbed to his injuries, official sources said.
They told GNS that the Aviation Technician Pabballa Anil was evacuated from the site of crash alongside the two pilots to Command Hospital Udhampur. “The injured technician succumbed shortly after”, they said adding the two pilots are safe and are responding well to the treatment.
Earlier in a statement, a defence spokesperson said that three army personnel, including two pilots and a technician, sustained injuries after a helicopter they were on board apparently made a rough landing along the banks of Marua river in Kishtwar region this morning.
“At about 1115 hours on 04 May 2023, an Army Aviation ALH Dhruv helicopter on an operational mission made a precautionary landing on the banks of Marua river in the Kishtwar region of Jammu and Kashmir. As per inputs, the pilots had reported a technical fault to the Air Traffic Controller (ATC) and proceeded for a precautionary landing. Due to the undulating ground, undergrowth and unprepared landing area, the helicopter apparently made a hard landing”, reads a defence official statement adding an immediate rescue operation was launched and Army rescue teams reached the site.
“Two pilots and a technician were on board. All three injured personnel have been evacuated to Command Hospital, Udhampur.”
“A Court of Inquiry has been ordered”, reads the statement adding further details are being ascertained. (GNS)
Ben is one of hundreds of volunteer pilots in the US flying people across state lines in their small private planes so they can obtain abortion healthcare. He’s part of an Illinois-based group called Elevated Access that connects pilots with patients. Since the overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022 dismantled 50 years of legal protection around abortion access in the US, thousands of patients are now forced to travel to obtain the healthcare they need – which can be expensive, time consuming and risky
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
New Delhi: In a major development, the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) and the Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) of Air India have rejected the new pay structure proposed by the airline.
The primary bone of contention is the reduction in flying allowance from 70 hours to 40 hours every month under the new structure, which the pilots believe is unfair.
The two unions have warned of possible ‘industrial unrest’ if the management goes ahead with the new terms without their consent. While Air India has stated that it will “continue to engage with the remainder of its staff”, the airline has taken a tough stance on the issue, saying that there are “no recognised unions in Air India”.
This is the first wage revision offered by the Tata group-owned Air India since its takeover last year, and it will affect all 3,000 pilots across its four airlines – Air India, Air India Express, Air Asia India, and Vistara.
The pilots’ unions have instructed their members to reject the new employment conditions and wage structure offered by the management.
An agreement has been put in place for the employees to sign by April 25, but the two unions have stated that they will contest the terms and conditions, with their pilots refusing to sign the revised employment and compensation terms.
The two unions have warned of potential industrial unrest if the company takes any coercive or victimising action against their members.
In a joint statement, the unions stated that the company reiterated that “all previous understandings, representations and agreements of whatever nature that have been entered into with us are null & void and that the company further has the right to change any terms and conditions”.
“The term cost to the company for an assumed flying of 70 hrs is deliberately misleading and creates an impression of a generous compensation and accompanying benefits package. The actual guaranteed money being offered is only for 40 hrs. Effectively, any time a pilot is on leave or is unavailable due to recurrent training requirements or document/licence renewals, not to mention any sick leave, there is an automatic pay cut involved,” the statement read.
“The so-called rationalisations of allowances is not in line with any industry practices as projected by HR. Further, blanket consent is sought for any leave or insurance policy that the company may come up with & which is subject to amendment or outright withdrawal.
“Suffice it to say that this is not an all-inclusive list but merely a selection of some of the most outlandish and labour-hostile provisions that we have come across to date. This is dishonourable and how the management is trying to force it down the employees’ throats is outright unethical,” it added.
“Nor has the blatant attack on our rights as workmen to bargain collectively or seek legal redressal for any injustice or victimisation gone unnoticed. Where is the company requirement all of a sudden to forcibly promote almost all the permanent workmen of the union to the so-called Senior Commander management cadre? It is clear from all this that there is a concerted effort to gut the unions and isolate pilots into individual boxes where they can be exploited and victimised at will by the HR department,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, Air India’s spokesperson has defended the new compensation structure, which includes parity among different groups, recognition of managerial and supervisory roles for experienced pilots, and individual contracts sent to pilots and cabin crew for necessary paperwork.
“The managerial and supervisory role played by the experienced pilots is also being recognised in the form of designating them as Senior Commander as also offering them a special monthly allowance. The contracts reflecting these enhancements were individually sent to the pilots and cabin crew for necessary paperwork,” said the spokesperson.
The spokesperson also claimed that a large number of pilots and cabin crew have already accepted the new contracts, and the salary improvements and advancement opportunities they enable.
“The airline will continue to engage with the remainder of its staff through this process as currently there is no recognised union in Air India,” the spokesperson said.
Bharatpur: Targeting the Congress in Rajasthan over infighting, Union home minister Amit Shah on Saturday claimed the party will always give precedence to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot over Sachin Pilot as his contribution is higher in filling its coffers with the “corruption” money from the state.
“Pilot sits on dharna on any pretext but his number will not come because his contribution in filling the coffers of Congress party is less and Gehlot’s contribution is higher,” Shah said while addressing booth-level party workers meeting in Bharatpur.
#WATCH | “…Pilot ji whatever you do, your number won’t come, maybe your contribution is more on ground than Gehlot ji but Gehlot ji’s contribution is more in Congress’s treasure”: Union minister Amit Shah takes a dig at Ashok Gehlot-Sachin Pilot tussle in Rajasthan Congress pic.twitter.com/bZG4QHLMlP
Gehlot has made the Rajasthan government an “‘adda’ (hub) of corruption and has looted the state. This money of corruption has gone to the coffers of the Congress party,” the BJP leader alleged.
On the acquittal of the accused in the 2008 Jaipur bomb blast case, Shah alleged that the Congress government did not present proper arguments in the high court due to vote bank politics.
“The government is doing vote bank politics on the deaths of blast victims,” he alleged.
He that it is “a 3-D government in Rajasthan and three Ds stands for ‘dange’ (riots), ‘durvyavhar’ (ill-treatment) with women and ‘Dalit’ atrocities.
People “will vote out the government in elections,” Shah said and exuded confidence that the BJP will form the government with a 2/3 majority in assembly elections and will again win all 25 seats in Lok Sabha elections in Rajasthan.
He said that the BJP will go to elections on the basis of the work of the Modi government, the party ideology and the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government is one of the most corrupt governments in the history of Rajasthan. People are fed up,” he claimed.
Guwahati: An Army chopper crashed in Arunachal Pradesh on Thursday, officials said, adding that two pilots were missing.
Lt. Col. Mahendra Rawat, Army PRO at Guwahati told IANS, “A military aviation Cheetah helicopter flying an operational sortie was reported to have lost contact with the Air Traffic Control at 9.15 a.m. this morning.”
The chopper might have crashed near Manadala, west of Bomdila in Arunachal Pradesh, according to the Army spokesperson.
The pilot and co-pilot on board are missing. A search operation has been launched.
“The program involves watching how Ukrainian pilots conduct their mission planning and execution in flight simulators in order to determine how we can better advise the Ukrainian Air Force,” the U.S. official said.
A Defense Department official and another person familiar with the program said the aim is to evaluate how long it will take Ukrainian pilots to learn to fly modern fighter aircraft, including F-16s. The program was supposed to begin late last year, but was delayed, the people said.
The pilots have been at the base for a week and will stay for at least one more week. A Defense Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The news, first reported by NBC News, comes as top Biden administration officials repeatedly bat down the idea of sending the jets anytime soon.
“F-16s are a question for a later time,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said during a recent interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And that’s why President Biden said that, for now, he’s not moving forward with those.”
Colin Kahl, the Pentagon’s top policy official, told the House Armed Services Committee last week that the U.S. has not started training Ukrainians on F-16s, and that the timeline for delivering the aircraft is estimated at 18 months.
“Since we haven’t made the decision to provide F-16s and neither have our allies and partners, it doesn’t make sense to start to train them on a system they may never get,” Kahl said.
The decision to bring Ukrainian pilots over to the U.S. for an assessment does not change the thinking on whether to provide F-16s to Kyiv, the U.S. official said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
New Delhi: Aviation regulator DGCA has rejected the plea to revoke the suspension of the licence of an Air India pilot in connection with the urination incident onboard New York-Delhi flight in November last year, according to a source.
The licence of the pilot was suspended for three months by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on January 20.
A joint forum of six unions had also appealed to the regulator to revoke the suspension of the pilot’s licence.
On Wednesday, the source said the appeal of the pilot to revoke the licence suspension has been rejected.
In connection with the urination incident that happened onboard the Air India flight on November 26, 2022, the regulator had suspended the licence of the pilot for three months, imposed a penalty of Rs 30 lakh on the airline and Rs 3 lakh on the director of the carrier’s in-flight services.
The enforcement action was taken by the DGCA citing various lapses in reporting about the incident, which came to the regulator’s notice only on January 4.
On January 24, the forum said that while there is a groundswell of “public pressure” for action, given the serious nature of the allegations of the complainant, there is a need to evaluate the same with the nature of the Pilot-In-Command’s duties and responsibilities, among others and to evaluate the facts that came up before the pilots and crew on the said flight.
Citing various aspects, the forum had asked the regulator to “withdraw the harsh punishment and suspension of the PIC”.
The six unions represented by the forum are Indian Pilots Guild, Indian Commercial Pilots Association, Air Corporation Employees Union, Air India Employees Union, All India Cabin Crew Association and Airline Pilots Association of India.
New Delhi: Aviation regulator DGCA has rejected the plea to revoke the suspension of the licence of an Air India pilot in connection with the urination incident onboard New York-Delhi flight in November last year, according to a source.
The licence of the pilot was suspended for three months by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on January 20.
A joint forum of six unions had also appealed to the regulator to revoke the suspension of the pilot’s licence.
On Wednesday, the source said the appeal of the pilot to revoke the licence suspension has been rejected.
In connection with the urination incident that happened onboard the Air India flight on November 26, 2022, the regulator had suspended the licence of the pilot for three months, imposed a penalty of Rs 30 lakh on the airline and Rs 3 lakh on the director of the carrier’s in-flight services.
The enforcement action was taken by the DGCA citing various lapses in reporting about the incident, which came to the regulator’s notice only on January 4.
On January 24, the forum said that while there is a groundswell of “public pressure” for action, given the serious nature of the allegations of the complainant, there is a need to evaluate the same with the nature of the Pilot-In-Command’s duties and responsibilities, among others and to evaluate the facts that came up before the pilots and crew on the said flight.
Citing various aspects, the forum had asked the regulator to “withdraw the harsh punishment and suspension of the PIC”.
The six unions represented by the forum are Indian Pilots Guild, Indian Commercial Pilots Association, Air Corporation Employees Union, Air India Employees Union, All India Cabin Crew Association and Airline Pilots Association of India.
A photograph of three men holding ‘pilot licence’ with a picture of helicopter embossed on certificate has gone viral on social media. The three bare-footed men wearing traditional Afghani attire can be seen holding certificates in their hands while sitting in an office. A journalist Asaad Sam Hanna shared it on Twitter. He wrote, “Taliban grants flight certificates to the first three pilots in Afghanistan”.
Speaking to The Fauxy, Afghanistan journalist Kabul Khan said “Their final exam happened exactly like Guru Dronacharya took exams of Pandava and asked them if they could see a bird sitting on the tree. However, the result was different in this case. Those who answered yes to – if they could see the skyscrapers while flying above NewYork – were rejected and only these three who didn’t see the skyscrapers were selected“.
Reportedly, the pilots are trained only for take off and mid air fly and not landing so that they perfectly deliver on their mission. Details awaited.
[ Disclaimer: With inputs from The Fauxy, an entertainment portal. The content is purely for entertainment purpose and readers are advised not to confuse the articles as genuine and true, these Articles are Fictitious meant only for entertainment purposes. ]
WAREHAM, Dorset — Ukrainian fighter pilots will soon be trained in Britain — but Kyiv will have to wait a little longer for the modern combat jets it craves.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy left the U.K. Wednesday with a firm British commitment to train fighter jet pilots on NATO-standard aircraft, along with an offer of longer-range missiles.
U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace has now been tasked with investigating which jets the U.K. might be able to supply to Ukraine, Downing Street announced — but Prime Minister Rishi Sunak fell short of making actual promises on their supply, which his spokesman said would only ever be a “long-term” option.
Speaking at a joint press conference at the Lulworth military camp in Wareham, southern England, Sunak said the priority must be to “arm Ukraine in the short-term” to ensure the country is not vulnerable to a fresh wave of Russian attacks this spring.
Standing alongside Zelenskyy in front of a British-made Challenger 2 tank, Sunak restated that “nothing is off the table” when it comes to provision of military assistance to Ukraine, and said fourth-generation fighter jets were part of his conversation with the Ukrainian president “today, and have been previously.”
These talks also covered the supply chains required to support such sophisticated aircraft, Sunak said.
But he cautioned a decision to deliver jets would only be taken in coalition with allies, and said training pilots must come first and could take “some time.”
“That’s why we have announced today that we will be training Ukrainian air force on NATO-standard platforms, because the first step in being able to provide advanced aircrafts is to have soldiers or aviators who are capable of using them,” Sunak said. “We need to make sure they are able to operate the aircraft they might eventually be using.”
The first Challenger 2 tanks pledged by Britain will arrive in Ukraine by next month, Sunak added.
President Zelenskyy ramped up the pressure on Rishi Sunak joking that he had left parliament two years earlier grateful for “delicious English tea”, but this time he would be “thanking all of you in advance for powerful English planes” | Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images
Describing his private conversations with Sunak as “fruitful,” Zelenskyy said he was “very grateful” that Britain had finally heard Kyiv’s call for longer-range missiles.
But he warned that without fighter jets, there is a risk of “stagnation” in his country’s battle against Russian occupation.
“Without the weapons that we are discussing now, and the weapons that we just discussed with Rishi earlier today, and how Britain is going to help us, you know, all of this is very important,” he said. “Without this, there would be stagnation, which will not bring anything good.”
Rolling out the red carpet
The U.K. had rolled out the red carpet for Zelenskyy’s surprise day-long visit, which alongside the visit to the military base included talks with Sunak at Downing Street, a meeting with King Charles at Buckingham Palace and a historic address to the U.K. parliament in Westminster.
Only a handful of leaders have made such an address in Westminster Hall over the past 30 years, including Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama.
“We have freedom. Give us wings to protect it,” Zelenskyy told British lawmakers, after symbolically handing House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle a helmet used by one of Ukraine’s fighter pilots. The message written upon it stated: “Combat aircraft for Ukraine, wings for freedom.”
Zelenskyy’s call was backed by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who urged Sunak to meet his request.
“We have more than 100 Typhoon jets. We have more than 100 Challenger 2 tanks,” he said. “The best single use for any of these items is to deploy them now for the protection of the Ukrainians — not least because that is how we guarantee our own long-term security.”
Western defense ministers will gather to discuss further military aid to Ukraine on February 14, at a meeting at the U.S. base of Ramstein in southwest Germany.
Sunak’s spokesman said that while Britain has made no decision on whether to send its own jets, “there is an ongoing discussion among other countries about their own fighter jets, some of which are more akin to what Ukrainian pilots are used to.”
Training day
Britain’s announcement marks the first public declaration by a European country on the training of Ukrainian pilots, and could spur other European nations into following suit. France is already considering a similar request from Kyiv.
Yuriyy Sak, an adviser to Ukrainian Minister of Defence Oleksii Reznikov, praised the U.K.’s decision and said allies “know very well that in order to defeat Russia in 2023, Ukraine needs all types of weaponry,” short of nuclear.
“A few weeks ago, the U.K. showed leadership in the issue of providing tanks to Ukraine, and then other allies have followed their example,” he said. “Now the U.K. is again showing leadership in the pilot training issue. Hopefully other countries will follow.”
The British scheme is likely to run in parallel to an American program to train Ukrainian pilots to fly U.S. fighters, for which the U.S. House of Representatives approved $100 million last summer. In October Ukraine announced a group of several dozen pilots had been selected for training on Western fighter jets.
The first Ukrainian pilots are expected to arrive in Britain in the spring, with Downing Street warning the instruction program could last up to five years. Military analysts, however, say the length of any such scheme could vary significantly depending on the pilots’ previous expertise and the type of fighter they learn to operate.
The U.K. announcement is therefore of “significant value” but “does not suggest the provision of fighter jets is imminent,” said Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow for airpower at the British think tank RUSI.
The British program is likely to involve simulators and focus on providing training on NATO tactics and basic cockpit procedures to Ukrainian pilots who already have expertise in flying Soviet-era jets, Bronk said.
The new training programs come in addition to the expansion in the numbers of Ukrainian early recruits being trained on basic tactics in the U.K., from 10,000 to 20,000 soldiers this year.
‘Unimaginable hardships’
Wednesday’s visit marked Zelenskyy’s first trip to the U.K. since Russia’s invasion almost a year ago and only his second confirmed journey outside Ukraine during the war, following a visit to the United States last December.
The Ukrainian president arrived on a Royal Air Force plane at an airport north of London Wednesday morning, the entire trip a closely guarded secret until he landed.
Recounting his first visit to London back in 2020, when he sat in British wartime leader Winston Churchill’s armchair, Zelenskyy said: “I certainly felt something — but it is only now that I know what the feeling was. It is a feeling of how bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with victory.”
Zelenskyy travelled to Paris Wednesday evening for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. In a short statement, Zelenskyy said France and Germany “can be game-changers,” adding: “The earlier we get heavy weapons, long-range missiles, aircraft, alongside tanks, the sooner the war will end.”
Macron said Ukraine “can count on France and Europe to [help] win the war,” while Scholz added that Zelenskyy expected attendance at a summit of EU leaders in Brussels Thursday “is a sign of solidarity.”
Dan Bloom and Clea Caulcutt provided additional reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
