Why do MiG-21s crash so often?

These jets are 60 years old, more than half of them have crashed, and over 170 pilots died... but why do we still fly them?

Transcript

00:00Squadron leader Abhinav Choudhury, Flight Lieutenant Aditya Bal, Wing Commander M Rana,

00:05Wing Commander Harshad Sinha, Group Captain Ashish Gupta.

00:08These were among the people killed in the 8 MiG-21 crashes in just the last 2 years.

00:19But why do MiGs crash so often? And why do we still use them?

00:23To understand this, we need to look at the history of these fighter jets.

00:27The Soviet-origin aircraft, now ominously nicknamed the Flying Coffin,

00:31was first inducted into the Indian Air Force in 1963.

00:34They were meant to increase India's combat ability.

00:38But of the more than 800 MiGs purchased from Russia,

00:41over 400 have crashed, Defence Minister A.K. Antony told Parliament in 2012.

00:47More than 200 people were killed.

00:49The Soviets, who designed this aircraft, removed it from service in 1985.

00:54Even countries like Bangladesh and Afghanistan had removed it.

00:58In India too, the planes completed their retirement period in the mid-1990s.

01:03But we held on to them.

01:05There were a few reasons for this.

01:07It's not as though we're still using the same aircraft from the 1960s.

01:11They've been upgraded with new sensors and armament.

01:14Now, more than 60% of these planes are being built in India by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.

01:24It has been upgraded.

01:26It is not the old MiG-21 bis.

01:28It's got a better weapon system.

01:29It's got better radars, better air-to-air missiles.

01:32But the engines remain the same, said a former IAF commander.

01:36Some experts say that the MiG-21s form the bulk of the Air Force's inventory.

01:41With the Air Force at the strength of just 32 squadrons,

01:44as compared to the 42 mandated by the government,

01:47and delays in inducting the new fighter jets like Tejas and Rafale,

01:50the MiGs were needed to be able to protect our skies,

01:53said retired Air Vice Marshal Sunil Nanodkar.

01:56But their large numbers meant there was more use, and there were more crashes.

02:01Now, the Air Force was looking to phase the MiG-21s out completely by 2025.

02:06While each crash happens for a different reason,

02:09reports have broadly classified them into technical defects,

02:13human error and bird hits because it is a single-engine aircraft.

02:17Defence journalists have also blamed the crashes on shoddy maintenance and inadequate training.

02:22While there doesn't seem to be anything specifically wrong with the MiGs,

02:26some reports say that pilots have complained about

02:29certain models of the aircraft landing too fast.

02:32They also said they couldn't see the runway properly because of the window canopy.

02:36Back in 2014, the Air Force chief said India's security was threatened

02:40by delaying the removal of these old planes from service because parts of the fleet were outdated.

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