NEW DELHI: Dubbed “flying coffins” or “widow makers” in the air force, India’s ageing collection of Soviet-era MiGs have long been unpopular with air force pilots. New figures unveiled Wednesday show why.
India’s Defence Minister A.K. Antony said there had been 482 accidents in the last 30 years, resulting in the deaths of 171 pilots and 39 civilians. The MiG fleet is now 873-strong.
New Delhi’s acquisitions began in 1966 with MiG-21 interceptors, and the next two decades saw the induction of the high-speed MiG 25, ground-attack MiG 27 and the fourth-generation MiG-29 fighter jets into the Indian Air Force.
Experts say a majority of the accidents involved India’s single-engine-based MiG-21s, a combat aeroplane which has been flown by some 50 countries since it was developed by then Soviet Union in the 1950s.
“A total of 171 pilots, 39 civilians, eight service personnel and one aircrew lost their lives in these accidents,” the defence minister told parliament, referring to the period from 1971-1972 to April 19 this year.
The accidents were blamed on “human error and technical defects”.
Antony in February said that the Indian Air Force would start phasing out its mainstay MiG-21s, comprising 40 per cent of its total fleet, beginning 2014.
Recurring crashes involving the single-engine MiG-21 inspired Bollywood film “Rang De Basanti” (Color It Saffron) in 2006, and sparked a spirited campaign in 2003 by relatives of a killed pilot for the scrapping of the war jets.
India plans to replace its MiGs with 123 modern aircraft in a deal worth $12 billion. France’s Dassault Aviation in January won the right to enter exclusive negotiations to sell its Rafale planes.
Price negotiations are currently under way between the French firm and India.
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India
is it the ageing airframe/engine failure or the pilot error being the main cause of crash of this legendary fighter?
I would like to present my view on Migs and HAL here contradicting the popular belief on this forum:
As you are aware we operate mig 21, Mig 23/27 and mig 29's.
In 1961 to 1969 India had acquired around 120 mig 21's which were a mix of Mig21 R and Mig 21S
Later around 68 India began importing Mig 21 M and mig 21 MF were built under license essentially CBU's for initial batches.and then later entered production full production lines around "1975"
Mig 27's irrespective of popular opinion is not license manufactured but license assembled from CKD kits from Russia, but Upgrades to aircrafts have been done by HAL.
MIG 21 F/S/MF were the top of the line fighters in 1960's to 1980's. Fighters who flew mig 21 had to graduate through hunters, gnats and then finally get to 21 hence had amazing amount of training behind them .
Mig 21 is an inherently complex aircraft to fly and needs extreme amount of training, with advent of mig 23/27/jaguars/mig 29 suddenly mig 21 was no longer front line premier aircraft and newer pilots with relatively lesser training were graduating straight from Kirans to Fishbed, which is like puting you from a cycle onto a hayabusa.
Next, All aircrafts when go through overhaul are ripped to individual pieces , inspected, faulty parts are replaced and then re assembled.
In early 90's with breakup of soviet union, russian satellite states were offering spares which lower in cost compared to the ones manufactured by HAL, so our dear elected Netas procured spares for Mig 21's from Ukraine and Uzbekistan, which incedentally ended up costlier than one produced by HAL (heavy kickbacks were speculated, this was when sharad pawar was the defence minister)
All blackbox reports of CRE/CRI and DGQCA have pointed towards faulty imported spares and subsystems imported by MOD, not one has ever come back to HAL.
1)Faulty imported spares
2)Age of Aircraft
3) lack of supersonic jet trainer has attributed to Mig 21 crashes
Not once Hindustan Aeronautics Limited has been ever charged with any misgivings or culpable practices.
Mig 27's crashes:
Mig 27 systems are not manufactured in India by HAL but only assembled, if any manufacturing flaw attributes to Mig 21, responsibility lies with Russian Manufacturers, Again Mig 27 is an ageing platform and should be retired off service. No mig 27 crash has ever been tied to fault assembly process.
Mig 21 Bison upgrade was done by HAL not drdo or ADA according to air force specs.
I completely disagree about the inability too provide russian spares, this is not true. MoD decided to procure cannibilized/surplus spares from kazhakistan/uzbekistan/ukraine over manufacturing them at HAL.these were for Mig 21 series. HAL has had excellent track record for Mig 21 production and overhaul (Bisons).
This procurement was under CVC investigation in the early 2000, i am not sure what happened to its results.
Mig 29's are not manufacture or overhauled by HAL, its all done by IAF BRD.
HAL's manufacturing:
Think, if HAL's manufacturing practices were so wrong , shouldn't Jaguars, Cheetahs, chetaks, Dorniers, SU 30MKI be falling out of the sky everyday, why only mig 21's and Mig 27.
How come you complain about a Migs and not about Sukhois and jaguars. I hope you realise SU 30 MKI are produced HAL nasik division.
Incidentally mig 21series, mig 21 Bisons, mig 27's, all were also from the same nasik divison.
rafale question is often attributed to tejas's delay,
Tejas Delay:
There are many answers to this question :
First EOQ: Economic order quantity
HAL is a PSU not a government LAb and has to be a profitable venture. HAL is not provided any discounts by the MoD/Air force for being patriotic and producing a large quantity.
Approximate numbers of production is established by MoD/HAL/Planning Commission not by HAL alone
HAL also has to maintain Overhaul lines for existing product. Wasn't this ADA business the brain child of IAF and Mod, HAL is not responsible for the design of Tejas, ADA has to finalize the design, Hal will do the production planning, and we have more than 60 years of experience for the same. If anyone has t take the blame for delay in tejas , it has to be the IAF and MoD.
Why did IAF contantly keep revising its requirements for tejas, they are not children,
Has IAF fielded an aircraft with full funding and refined it later, yes "SU 30MKI", Why hasn't the same privilege been given to LCA mk1..LCA MK1 can be improved to perform better than the mirage 2000 series (my view).
From my personal experience I can tell you there is no funding for R&D in HAL, R&D funding is monopolized by DRDO.
When we do get funding for devlopment , we have produced , MKI subsytems, bison subsytems, ALH WSO, LCH and also many subsytems for ISRO's PSLV
