Russia now regrets MiG 21 statement

Russia has apologised for ‘‘the irresponsible statement,’’ it made on the MiG-21 spares. Russian aviation officials had ...

Russia has apologised for ‘‘the irresponsible statement,’’ it made on the MiG-21 spares. Russian aviation officials had attributed the frequent MiG-21 crashes to purchase of sub-standard and reconditioned spares from Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Chairman of the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), N.R. Mohanty, said the statements were the result of ‘‘internal politics,’’ between Russia and other CIS countries. ‘‘We spoke to the Russian authorities and they apologised. It had more to do with the problems and competition among them than with the quality of spares,’’ Mohanty said.

Russia had been insisting that India procure spares through it and not go directly to either the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) or vendors in CIS countries. But India secured an agreement to deal with OEMs directly. India, however, has now started working on a project with Russia and other CIS countries to set up a manufacturing line of MiG-21 spares in India itself, sources said.

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Even though Mohanty insisted each and every spare procured went through very stringent quality control checks he admitted both HAL and Indian Air Force (IAF) were ‘‘very worried and shocked’’, after the crash of the newly upgraded MiG-21 Bis 93 earlier this month.

The aircraft had crashed before clocking less than 50 hours of flying near Ambala. ‘‘We are carrying out very detailed investigations. Initial reports indicate a problem with the fuel injection system. There is nothing wrong with the R-25 engine that powers the aircraft,’’ he said.

‘‘‘Engine flame out’ appears to be the cause of the crashes. Out of the three MiG-21 crashes (in Ambala, Jodhpur and Tezpur) two were due to the engine stalling and then failing to reignite. These crashes cannot even be blamed on pilot inexperience,’’ IAF sources said.