Indian Air Force C-17s had to carry own forklift

The Indian Air Force’s fleet of ten Boeing C-17 airlifters are not fully utilized by the service, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has pointed out.

IAF-C-17
By U.S. Air Force by Jet Fabara [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The auditors also fault Boeing for failing to install the required simulators under offset commitments.

The massive aircraft can hull 70 tonnes of cargo each trip, yet the CAG found that the squadron’s average load ranged between 13 tonnes and 18 tonnes per sortie.

The destinations that the planes flew to were also poor equipped to held the cargo and most of the time, the crew had to bring along a forklift. Wasting precious cargo space in the process.