MiG-21

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.

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.