The military’s entire fleet of Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH) will not fly for another three months, it is reported. The ALHs were grounded in January after an Indian Coast Guard chopper crashed in Porbandar during a training sortie, killing all three persons on board. In September 2024, another Coast Guard ALH Mark-III had crashed during a medical evacuation mission off the Porbandar coast, claiming another three lives. Why are there repeated concerns over this indigenous military helicopter? A prominent red flag in the operational exploitation of any flying machine is an “aircraft on ground” (AOG) event. It denotes the grounding of the aircraft due to non-availability of an essential spare or rotable and will demand the highest priority at every level to liquidate. Repeated AOG occurrences and/ or inordinate delay in liquidating AOG can be indicative of a poorly developed op-logistic chain, flawed contract, or a product that is yet to mature. Story continues below this ad Another event that any operator across the civil-military spectrum would want to avoid at any cost is …