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Of the 793 single-engined MiG-21s well over 330 have been lost in accidents

HAIDER

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NEW DELHI: In yet another crash in IAF, a MiG-27 fighter went down near Siliguri in West Bengal on Tuesday afternoon, killing the pilot, a squadron leader.

The MiG-27 is a `swing wing' aircraft and the over 100 of them in IAF combat fleet were hardly flown in 2005-2006 after it was found that their R-29 engines were causing a large number of accidents.

With the MiG-27 fleet undergoing an upgrade since then, IAF actually plans to operate these fighters well into the next decade, even though they are ageing, because they constitute an important element of its strike fleet.

The number of IAF fighter squadrons, of course, is itself down to just 32-33 from even the `authorised strength' of 39.5 squadrons. IAF will achieve its desired squadron strength of 42 only after 2020.

From 1971-72 to 2003-04, IAF's consolidated average rate stood at 1.09 accidents per 10,000 hours of flying, roughly translating into the loss of 23 aircraft and the death of 10-14 pilots every year.

The crash rate did come down dramatically to around 0.27 accidents per 10,000 hours of flying, with an over 50% reduction in crashes after 2003-04. But the number of crashes seem to be going up once again now.

The aging MiG variants, which constitute the bulk of India's
combat fleet, have, of course, been the main culprits. The `highly-demanding' MiG-21s, in particular, have a horrifying track-record.

Of the 793 single-engined MiG-21s inducted into IAF since 1963, well over 330 have been lost in accidents. The problem has been compounded by shoddy maintenance, poor quality control of spares and inadequate training to rookie pilots.

Is our Air Force in any competitive state to challenges the likes of China?
Pilot killed in MiG-27 crash - India - The Times of India
 
Mig 21 is a sucide bomber now. How many more we want to be killed? We won't have to eliminate our Mig 21 till MMRCA or LCA arrives. They are anyways going to CRASH and will be finished by then... Simple.. Job made easy. WTF?
 
This is such a disgrace to the political/military elite who're keeping a blind eye on maintenance and security of the aircraft and the jawan fighter pilots flying them


Could you people imagine what the families must be going through of these young and priceless jawan pilots who are paying with their lives for the incompetence and inefficiency of these blood ****** politicians and govern't officials...


RIP to the young jawans...Honestly I feel really sorry for such precious accidental losses
 
Well most of the older pilots I spoke to loved the joy of flying the MiG 21. They preferred it over any other aircraft in the IAF...This was also resonated by the Pakistani pilots in the Arab-Israeli war prompting the PAF to go for the J-7 in the early 90s. Dont know what the hell is going on. By the way everyone knows India had lost more than 320 MiGs long time back. Why beat a dead snake again and again?
 
Well most of the older pilots I spoke to loved the joy of flying the MiG 21. They preferred it over any other aircraft in the IAF...This was also resonated by the Pakistani pilots in the Arab-Israeli war prompting the PAF to go for the J-7 in the early 90s. Dont know what the hell is going on. By the way everyone knows India had lost more than 320 MiGs long time back. Why beat a dead snake again and again?

Okay dude mig-21 in iaf are awesome they are great .Happy now?
 
Well most of the older pilots I spoke to loved the joy of flying the MiG 21. They preferred it over any other aircraft in the IAF...This was also resonated by the Pakistani pilots in the Arab-Israeli war prompting the PAF to go for the J-7 in the early 90s. Dont know what the hell is going on. By the way everyone knows India had lost more than 320 MiGs long time back. Why beat a dead snake again and again?

Satish Chill!! It is ok we must accept our short coming then only we can work on it to rectify the errors.

They must have been good but now they are old even we know that then why show ignorance? Lets accept it. This thing will continue unless we induct LCA or MMRCA.

I hope you don't mind what I said.

Thanks

KS
 
Well most of the older pilots I spoke to loved the joy of flying the MiG 21. They preferred it over any other aircraft in the IAF...This was also resonated by the Pakistani pilots in the Arab-Israeli war prompting the PAF to go for the J-7 in the early 90s. Dont know what the hell is going on. By the way everyone knows India had lost more than 320 MiGs long time back. Why beat a dead snake again and again?

It was a very fast aircraft back then with decent maneuverability at good speed and very popular worldwide (most manufactured jet fighter of all time), hence the thrill. Being Soviet, it did not have top grade build quality and hence failure rate of parts was much higher than American/European counterparts. This failure rate kept increasing as the aircraft aged and continues to this day.

Some do blame the IAF's personnel and maintenance procedures which i cannot agree, case in point being the Jaguar IS, IB which rarely if ever end up like this.

The bureaucracy is what hurts the most. They wanted Mirage2000 upgrade, then they didnt, then they did, and they've been planning on MRCA and will keep dragging it on :hitwall:
 
Maintenance is biggest issue in IAF. Two down SU30 is surprising.
 
Maintenance is biggest issue in IAF. Two down SU30 is surprising.

Yeah. You should have witnessed the late 80s and early 90s. That was some real bad time for maintenance. We had the worst time then.

It is only in 2000 that we realized how lacking our maintenance was. Though the situation has improved a lot. There were just 3 crashes last year. In 90s, it was easily 7-15 per year.
 
It is saddening to see the Mig 21 crashing along with Mig-23/27 but I think we have to keep in mind Mig-21 is in service since 1963! Average life of a fighter aircraft is 20yrs, by that calculations it should have been out from service in 1983 but then we still kept in force since we didn't had funds/ red tape/ watever! so this is bound to happen

But India is upgrading Mig 21 to Bison standard using Israeli radar, jamming and different sorts of missiles which even US recognize as a very serious and potent threat to it's F-15.

Hopefully either accidents will stop or will be out of service!
 
The main problem was the parts for Mig 21 after the disintegration of USSR so we made some faulty decisons on this front...... But the no of air accidents have gone down as of now....

As far as Su30 are concerned they went down not just for India for other countries as well..............
 
Yeah. You should have witnessed the late 80s and early 90s. That was some real bad time for maintenance. We had the worst time then.

It is only in 2000 that we realized how lacking our maintenance was. Though the situation has improved a lot. There were just 3 crashes last year. In 90s, it was easily 7-15 per year.

I think you will find that it was a few more than just three crashes. ???


Here goes, for the years 2009:

- (21 Jan) Kiran Mk-II trainer, Bidar District, 1 pilot killed (indian air force)

- (31 Jan) MiG-27 Flogger fighter, Jalpaiguri, no fatalities (indian air force)

- (04 Feb) IJT trainer, Bangalore, no fatalities (hal).

- (07 Mar) Saras transport, Bidadi, 3 crew killed (nal).

- (25 Mar) Ka-28 helicopter, Goa, no fatalities (indian navy).

- (30 Apr) Su-30Mki fighter, Jaiselmir, 1 pilot killed (indian air force)

- (15 May) MiG-27M (UPG) fighter, Jodhpur, no fatalities. (indian air force)

- (27 May) MiG-21 fighter, Jodhpur, no fatalities. (indian air force)

- (10 June) An-32 transport, Assam, 3 crew members and 10 passengers killed (indian air force)

- (18 June) MiG-21 (OFTU) fighter, Assam, no fatalities. (indian air force)

- (31 July) HPT-32 trainer, Andhra Pradesh, 2 pilots killed. (indian air force)

- (16 Aug) Cheetah helicopter, Ladakh, 2 officers and 1 soldier killed. (indian army)

- (21 Aug) Harrier fighter, Goa, 1 pilot killed. (indian navy)

- (10 Sept) MiG-21 (MF) fighter, Punjab, 1 pilot killed. (indian air force)

- (23 Oct) MiG-27 fighter, Jalpaiguri, no fatalities. (indian air force)

- (30 Oct) Mi-17 helicopter, Jummu, 2 pilots and 2 personel killed. (indian air force)

- (30 Nov) Su-30 fighter, Rajistan, no fatalities. (indian air force)
 
I think you will find that it was a few more than just three crashes. ???


Here goes, for the years 2009:

- (21 Jan) Kiran Mk-II trainer, Bidar District, 1 pilot killed (indian air force)

- (31 Jan) MiG-27 Flogger fighter, Jalpaiguri, no fatalities (indian air force)

- (04 Feb) IJT trainer, Bangalore, no fatalities (hal).

- (07 Mar) Saras transport, Bidadi, 3 crew killed (nal).

- (25 Mar) Ka-28 helicopter, Goa, no fatalities (indian navy).

- (30 Apr) Su-30Mki fighter, Jaiselmir, 1 pilot killed (indian air force)

- (15 May) MiG-27M (UPG) fighter, Jodhpur, no fatalities. (indian air force)

- (27 May) MiG-21 fighter, Jodhpur, no fatalities. (indian air force)

- (10 June) An-32 transport, Assam, 3 crew members and 10 passengers killed (indian air force)

- (18 June) MiG-21 (OFTU) fighter, Assam, no fatalities. (indian air force)

- (31 July) HPT-32 trainer, Andhra Pradesh, 2 pilots killed. (indian air force)

- (16 Aug) Cheetah helicopter, Ladakh, 2 officers and 1 soldier killed. (indian army)

- (21 Aug) Harrier fighter, Goa, 1 pilot killed. (indian navy)

- (10 Sept) MiG-21 (MF) fighter, Punjab, 1 pilot killed. (indian air force)

- (23 Oct) MiG-27 fighter, Jalpaiguri, no fatalities. (indian air force)

- (30 Oct) Mi-17 helicopter, Jummu, 2 pilots and 2 personel killed. (indian air force)

- (30 Nov) Su-30 fighter, Rajistan, no fatalities. (indian air force)

:hitwall: The topic states Mig 21 and what I wrote was wrt Mig21 only.
 
:hitwall: The topic states Mig 21 and what I wrote was wrt Mig21 only.

Sorry i didn't read MIG-21 mentioned in your post.:oops:



Yeah. You should have witnessed the late 80s and early 90s. That was some real bad time for maintenance. We had the worst time then.

It is only in 2000 that we realized how lacking our maintenance was. Though the situation has improved a lot. There were just 3 crashes last year. In 90s, it was easily 7-15 per year.
 
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