MiGs have been crashing repeatedly and have been termed ‘flying coffins’ by defence experts.
New Delhi: The Russian-made accident-prone MiG fighter planes—MiG 21 and MiG 27—will be decommissioned from the Indian Air Force (IAF) in a phased manner by 2024, according to the Ministry of Defence.
A MiG 21-Bison was instrumental in bringing down a modern F-16 fighter plane of the Pakistan Air Force earlier this week, in the wake of growing tension between India and Pakistan.
In its statement to Parliament recently, the Ministry of Defence said, “The MiG-21 and MiG-27 UPG (Upgraded) aircraft of the Indian Air Force will be phased out on completion of their Total Calendar Life or Total Technical Life by 2024.”
The accident-prone MiGs have been crashing repeatedly and have been termed “flying coffins” by several defence experts as they have been living way past their lives. The Russian made MiGs were brought into India in the 1960s and were supposed to be decommissioned in the 1990s, but since the IAF did not acquire any significant air assets over the years, these planes were kept in service with upgrades from time to time.
As per estimates provided by the Ministry of Defence, more than 400 MiG 21s have crashed since the 1970s and many of them were due to technical snags.
This has also led to depleting flight squadrons in the Indian Air Force. The Indian Air Force, which requires more than 42 flight squadrons to protect its borders with Pakistan and China, is at its lowest currently, with just 31 flight squadrons left and with the phasing out of the MiG 21s, the IAF will be left with just 15-16 flight squadrons.
Defence experts and former Air Force officials have also expressed concern over the depleting flight squadrons of the Indian Air Force and have expressed their desire for immediate action by the government to address this alarming situation.
Former Air Chief Marshal (Retd) P.B. Nayak told The Sunday Guardian, “The MiGs are living way past their lives with updates, but as a pilot who has flown MiGs for more than 2000 hours, I can say that the MiG 21-Bison that brought down a relatively new F-16 fighter jet was a good update in 2012. But having said this, we have to seriously look into the depleting squadrons and the number of fighter planes in our Air Force. The Air Force had made repeated requests to the government; the Air Force had also apprised successive governments of the condition of the MiGs, but we could not do away with them because no other air assets were acquired by us for a very long time.”
However, IAF officials have said that MiG 21s will soon be replaced with Light Combat multirole Tejas aircraft, which is being designed indigenously and developed by HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited), while the 36 French-made Rafale fighter jets will also add feathers to the IAF.
An IAF official said: “Tejas has been given Final Operational Clearance (FOC) just a week back and it would soon be brought into active service of the Indian Air Force. This will add to our might in the skies. Apart from this, we also hope that the Rafale would also arrive soon and it would indeed be one of the biggest acquisitions of the IAF in recent times.”
To add to increasing combat aircraft into the IAF fleet, US defence manufacturing giant Lockheed Martin has also proposed to build F-21s fourth generation combat aircraft for India on the lines of the Pakistani F-16 aircraft. But the company has said that the F-21s will be built indigenously and solely for India, based on Indian requirements.
In a statement, Lockheed Martin said, “In an unprecedented Make in India opportunity, we are committed to India’s defence ecosystem and our proposed F-21 partnership will deliver advanced capabilities to the Indian Air Force and provide unmatched industrial opportunities, and accelerate India-U.S. cooperation on advanced technology.”