The tragic death of Sqn Ldr Sanjay Gaur, Senior Inspector at Tambaram Air Force Base in May, this year when his parachute did not open after he bailed out of his Kiran Mark-I plane raises questions about why pilots are so badly let down during emergencies. There are also questions hinging upon the psyche of the paratrooper ejected from an aircraft. Whether it is a mass landing of paratroop regiments from a fleet of aircraft as heavily armed battalions or as small groups entrusted with spying assignments as infiltrators into enemy territory, the success of their mission depends heavily on the expertise required for landing them at specified places where they will not be detected and shot.

Not all the parachute landings during the second world war had been successful with the Allied and the German armies having sniped at and decimated them even when the paratroopers were still in the air. This obviously requires that the paratroopers are briefed correctly by the meteorological departments on matters relating to wind, speed and its direction over the territory where para-landings should be made. The altitude at which the planes should be flying has also to be determined with precision. This makes it clear that paratroop dropping is by itself a discipline built up on its own science and technology.

The greatest hazard to which the paratroopers continue to be exposed, as one could see from the death of Sqn Ldr Sanjay Gaur, is that of the parachute failing to open. With the parachutes billowing out under a rush of air, it would seem that the aircraft transporting them would have to be flying at heights which are not much too rarefied and are very near to being a vacuum. This obviously calls for the observance of rigid norms in the flying of the plane at the right altitude in view of the risk which could lead to dropping the paratroopers from heights at which they could freeze.

At whatever heights the aircraft is being flown, the plane would be unbalanced with the opening of its doors for the bailing out of the paratroopers. It would have to be balanced quickly and this is part of the training which the pilots would have to go through. The military version of HS-748 (Avro) of IAF is distinguished from the passenger planes of the same breed of the Indian Airlines with its much wider exit doors to facilitate the dropping of paratroopers.

Despite all the training in parachute jumps which pilots go through, there is always the risk of its letting them down and resulting in their hurtling down to certain death. A recent report about Lynda Harding of California, a Gloucester Shire student who miraculously survived a plunge in April, this year says that a reserve parachute is provided to meet an emergency when the first one fails to open. She, however, survived with broken ribs, punctured lungs and a concussion after her parachute failed to open as she was plunging from 4000 feet at 80 miles per hour. This was her ninth parachute jump preceded by eight successful ones.

Among the other accidents resulting in serious injuries but without a fatality is that of the skydiver Craig Paton of Scotland who came down from 3,000 feet from his Cessna aircraft when his parachute failed to open in April, this year. Unlike as in the case of Lynda Harding, this was Paton’s first jump. He came down at 40 miles per hour which is a quarter of the time a normal para descent takes.

There are no answers yet as to why parachutes sometimes fail to open and hurl the paratroopers to certain death. The parachutes are made of specified quality materials which the wind billows out. This does not sometimes happen because of their having got stuck. The report - which has been just mentioned - about Lynda Harding reveals that there is now a provision for the paratroopers being dropped with a spare parachute if one fails to open and they could inflate them.

When a parachute fails to open out, it is because of obstructions brought about by the erratic response of hardware which should instantly unfurl when the paratroopers are baled out from the aircraft. This should indicate that the materials which fasten the parachute when it is at rest lend themselves to instant retraction when the paratroopers are ejected. A few cases where this does not happen suggest that the technology is not hundred percent failsafe and may have to be advanced.

The other hazard to which Air Force squadrons have to be prepared is the failure of nerve of the paratrooper when he is about to be ejected from the aircraft. Among the movies made during the second world war was the ‘Parachute Battalion’ in which a paratrooper breaks down when he was about to be dropped from a plane into enemy territory. He was later court-martialled.

One should imagine that the paratroopers go through rigorous training to be able to look forward to para jumps during wars. If, as it happens in a few cases, the paratroopers succumb to fear prior to an ejection, it is due to the ascendancy of negative responses which the paratrooper should have been trained to keep in check. This could lead to a syndrome which traps the paratrooper into a hallucination that everybody else is plotting against him. While fear is a natural emotion which gets hold of everyone caught in terrifying situations, shaking oneself free from it is projected as the correct response by military establishments. This is very well portrayed in the second world war movie which has just been mentioned. One could get a feel of the chilling fear which creeps into even the most intrepid paratrooper prior to his getting ready for a jump.

Capt Lindsey of the Royal Scots Fusiliers who was among the earliest of the British paratroopers during the second world war later recalled "how moist the palms of my hands were. I wished I didn’t always feel slightly sick in an aircraft." He tried not to look at the landscape below, into which he was going to be hurled within the next few moments. It should be mentioned here that corporate managers trained in another discipline also know that they could not survive adverse situation if they allow fear to overwhelm them.

The parachute battalions of our country have a long history, dating back to the second world war. The Indian Army had built up its airborne forces during the war and its 151st battalion was formed on October 18, 1941 from soldiers serving the Indian Army. The last memorable occasion when the Indian Air Force had successfully used its parachute battalions was during the war with Pakistan for the liberation of Bangladesh in December 1971 for the landing of its army personnel.

The spectacular parachute landings without a single mishap evoked the admiration of western correspondents covering the war from inside Bangladesh which was then East Pakistan. The older ones among them recalled in their despatches the Allied landings on the Normandy Coast during the second world war (1939-45).