RETROPHOTO: India’s Original AEW&C Platform

A rare photograph of one of three specially outfitted Avro HS 748s, the airborne test platforms under India’s erstwhile Project Airavat, in flight in the 1990s. The 24-ft diameter rotodome contained a radar developed by DRDO and HAL in the late 1980s under Project Guardian. Airavat (incidentally, now the name of one of the navy’s new amphibious assault ships) was suspended indefinitely following a tragic crash in January 1999 during a test-flight, in which all eight crew and scientists on board were killed. It was five years later that the effort was revived, and it is the DRDO AEW&C EMB 145I that we know today.
Photo / DRDO Archives

9 thoughts on “RETROPHOTO: India’s Original AEW&C Platform”

  1. You should have named the persons who lost their lives on that fateful day!!! one was Dr.Nrusimha rao,popularly called Dr.Nru of LRDE..CABS experts and ASTE pilots …RIP sirs.

  2. I would love to know the name and details of such "Dead Projects". A lot of valuable lives are lost, in our quest to achieve and break the frontiers of technology. In a similar note, a lot of valuable lives are at perpetual danger, due to poorly managed projects and plain bad technology, often thrust forcefully upon the Armed Forces by the all powerful "You know who".

  3. I still remember this plane, i saw in yelahanka air show…Took my friend dad life(he was in DRDO for the same project). The problem was with platform not with AWACS

  4. Happened in Arakonam. We(me and friends), kids back then saw it go down. Was a tragic sight and left us quite shocked.

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