India to start pashing out MiG 21s from 2014

Feb 29, 2012 |

New Delhi

Tags:

MiG 21s, which have often been involved in frequent crashes, will start getting phased out from 2014 setting the stage for giving the IAF a ‘new look’ with the induction of modern next generation aircraft.

"MiG 21s which constitute around 40 per cent of the IAF fleet will start getting phased out from 2014... With the induction of modern next generation aircraft such as the FGFA and MMRCA, the IAF will be a new look force," Defence Minister A. K. Antony said.

Indian Air Force(IAF) is on course to induct Su-30MKI, Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft and 126 new medium-multirole combat aircraft (MMRCA).

Antony was addressing a meeting of Parliament's Consultative Committee of the Defence Ministry on the state-owned aerospace major Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The IAF has already begun the process of phasing out the older variants of the MiG 21s and it is expecting to complete the process by the end of 2017.

Last year, a total of seven fighter aircraft had crashed of which six were MiG 21 variants. The IAF) has inducted a total of 946 MiG-21s in its fleet and 476 of them have been lost in various accidents over the past 45 years.

In a recent report, the ministry acknowledged that most of these accidents had occurred due to obsolete technology.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/130479" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-51a3c23ab85c5c29e2e7dacf9410ea2c" value="form-51a3c23ab85c5c29e2e7dacf9410ea2c" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80652039" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>