MiG crashes in Tezpur, pilot safe

An IAF MiG-21 fighter crashed this morning at Tezpur air force base. The pilot, Sqn Ldr S Bansal, managed to eject seconds after reporting an engine failure at about 11:50 am. No damage or casualties were reported on ground.

Today’s crash involved a Type-77 twin-seat trainer variant of the MiG-21, a type that has been on the block for a progressive phase out for the last four years. Of the over-300 MiG-21s which have crashed so far since the late 1960s when they were first purchased from Russia, a large number of inquiries have revealed problems with the fighter’s R-13 turbojet engine. In fact, while over a 100 MiG-21s have already been upgraded to the Bison standard —involving tweaks to the platform’s avionics, mission computer and weapons payload — the IAF’s recent announcement of another round of upgrades of 125 more fighters will envisage component upgrades to the engine as well.

Discussions regarding this are understood to have been made when Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee met RAC-MiG general director Alexei Fedorov in Moscow last month. Tezpur is home base to the MiG Operational Flying Training Unit (MOFTU), the IAF’s largest flight training establishment, where rookie pilots make the final and crucial jump from advanced jet training to flying the supersonic MiG-21. The pilot who was flying today was in a twin-seater trainer aircraft alone, though these aircraft are used primarily as a training platform for novices.