In News:
- A MiG-21 Bison aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) crashed in Barmer, Rajasthan, on July 28th, killing the two pilots aboard the trainer version of the fighter aircraft.
What’s in today’s article:
- About MiG-21 aircraft (History, Specifications, crash incidents, etc.)
- Reasons behind frequent crash
MiG-21 aircraft
History
- The MiG-21 is India’s longest-serving fighter plane. It was designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau (OKB) of the erstwhile Soviet Union.
- The Soviet Union was willing to sell this fighter aircraft to India on extremely favourable terms and even agreed for licensed production by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).
- The 1962 war with China and growing hostility from Pakistan had lent urgency to efforts to rapidly scale up India’s military capability.
- India got its first single-engine MiG-21 in 1963, and progressively inducted 874 variants of the Soviet-origin supersonic fighters.
- The plane has seen several updates and modifications since then.
About MiG-21 Bison:
- The MiG-21 Bison is an upgraded version of the MiG-21bis which had been first inducted into service in 1976.
- The MiG-21 FL, which was an older version of the aircraft and which joined service in 1963, had been phased out of IAF in 2013.
- The IAF received the first upgraded MiG-21 Bison in 2001 and the last of these upgraded fighters was received in 2008.
How many MiG-21 Bison aircraft are in IAF?
- There are four squadrons of MiG-21 Bison aircraft currently in service in the IAF with each squadron comprising 16-18 aircraft, including two trainer versions.
- These four squadrons will retire from service, one by one, by the end of 2025.
How many MiG-21 Bison aircraft have crashed recently?
- Over 400 MiG-21 aircraft of the Indian Air Force have crashed in the last 60 years, claiming the lives of over 200 pilots and 60 civilians.
- There have been six MiG-21 Bison crashes in the last 20 months, with five crashes in 2021 and one in 2022.
Why are they still in service?
- The Indian Air Force had to keep MiGs longer in service due to delays in induction of new fighter aircraft.
- Due to delays, the IAF is facing a crunch to maintain a certain squadron strength to guard India's skies.
- Delays in the indigenous Tejas programme, political controversy surrounding the Rafael deal and slow-paced procurement procedure meant that MiGs had to be kept in service longer than usual.
Reasons behind frequent crash of MiG-21 aircraft:
- Single-engine aircraft –
- The MiG-21 is a single engine fighter, and that could also be a cause for some of the crashes.
- When a single engine fighter jet loses that engine, it needs to be re-started.
- More often than not it re-lights but it takes a finite amount of time to re-light any engine. Hence, if one is below the minimum height, he/she has to leave the aircraft.
- Poor engine quality –
- MiG-21 has been upgraded dozens of times since its induction into the Indian Air Force.
- However, despite such upgrades, its engine could not be improved.
- Most countries including Russia itself have already retired the MiG-21, but India is still using it.
- Lack of alternatives –
- One of the reasons for the large number of crashes of MiG-21 fighter jets is the absence of any other fighter jet in the Air Force for a long time.
- For a long time no new fighter jets were included in the Air Force, due to which the entire load remained on the MiG-21.
- In the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, only supersonic MiG-21 fighter jets were used for pilot training.
- Besides these reasons, high quality spare parts are easily available in the world markets for modern jets as opposed to those for the MiG-21s.
