Simple facts, which I know most people neither will read nor bother to understand.
Attrition is measured on the basis of number of accidents per 10,000 hours of flying. On that basis, the IAF attrition rate was actually BETTER than that of the PAF between 1991-1998. This was written about and discussed on forums like Keypublishing which was a great source of data with people from all over the world discussing combat flying.
The following figures were given by Air Marshal (Retd.) Ayaz Ahmad Khan in a Pakistan Institute of Air Defence Studies (PIADS) article.
Annual Attrition Rates – Pakistan Air Force (expressed per 10,000 hours)
Year | 1991/92 | 1992/93 | 1993/94 | 1994/95 | 1995/96 | 1996/97 | 1997/98 |
Attrition Rate | 1.89 | 1.11 | 1.41 | 1.23 | 1.32 | 1.25 | 1.40 |
During this period, between 1991-1998, the average attrition rate of the PAF was 1.36 accidents per 10,000 hours of flying.
The same figure for the IAF between 1991-1998 was 1.06 accidents per 10,000 hours of flying.
The figures for the number of hours flown for the IAF was given by India's Comptroller and Auditor General's office.
1. IAF Total Flying Hours between 1991/92-1997/98: 1,836,875 hours
2. IAF Aircrafts lost between the same period = 194 (This includes crashes as well as write offs)
Therefore, IAF attrition rate was 1.06 per 10,000 flying hours between the same period of 1991-1998
It's simple maths, but this forum doesn't like simple maths mostly and loves propaganda. But propaganda does little except to fool gullible folks who don't matter in the real world.
The more you fly, the higher the odds that you'll have more crashes in terms of sheer numbers of crashes. But the important statistic is how often you crash, per 10,000 hours of flying you do.
And as the number of MiG-21s have come down in the IAF, so has the number of crashes. 2022 has been an exceptional year for the IAF with only 1 MiG-21UM crash on 29 July 2022. Compared to that, the PAF has had 2 crashes this year,
March 22 - Trainer crash in Peshawar, 2 pilots killed
May 25 - FT-7 crash near Wanda Sher Khelanwala, Mianwali, pilot ejected safely