A total of 16 Hawk advanced jet trainer aircraft were grounded owing to the paucity of spares, Defence Minister A K Antony told the Lok Sabha on Monday.
“A total of 16 Hawks are AOG (aircraft on ground) as on date for want of spares (rotables). Affected spares have been dispatched to vendors (HAL and BAE) for repair,” Antony said.
In 2004, India had entered into a contract with UK-based BAE Systems for 66 Hawks spending `66,000 crore.
The rest of 42 Hawks are being manufactured under licence from BAE by the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) in Bangalore.
On the actions taken to ensure availability of the aircraft for pilot training, Antony said the government has initiated establishment of an in-country repair and overall facilities at HAL, long-term product support agreement with BAE, procurement of spares from BAE and indigenisation of the spares.