NEW DELHI: Indian Air Force (IAF), the fourth largest force in the world, has lost 999 aircraft since 1970—476 of them MiGs— bringing the average to an appalling 22 crashes every year. In the last five years, 26 jets have crashed.
While the spate of accidents has led to loss of aircraft, they have also come at the cost of an immeasurable human resource— young fighter pilots. MiGs have claimed the lives of 176 Indian fighter pilots so far. On August 2, the IAF lost a single-engine Soviet vintage MiG-21— that accounts for nearly 62 per cent of the crashes in the IAF—and 24-year-old Flying Officer Suraj Pillai. The young pilot had tried to eject, but apparently, the canopy of his cockpit did not open.
On August 4, another young flyer Flight Lieutenant Siddharth Pandey perished when a British-built ground strike fighter jet Jaguar crashed 50 miles southeast of Gorakhpur airbase in Uttar Pradesh.
Two fatal accidents in the span of a week have brought into focus the chinks in the IAF’s capability. It lacks basic trainer aircraft for initial training of its rookie pilots.
Source: http://expressbuzz.com
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