Three civilians on the ground were killed after the wreckage of an Indian Air Force (IAF) MiG-21 fighter jet, which crashed near Suratgarh in Rajasthan at about 09:45 hours, fell on a house on May 8. The pilot has ejected safely, sustaining minor injuries.
“The aircraft had got airborne for a routine operational training sortie from the Air Force Station at Suratgarh. Soon thereafter, the pilot experienced an onboard emergency, following which he attempted to recover the aircraft as per existing procedures. Having failed to do so, he initiated an ejection, sustaining minor injuries in the process,” the IAF said in a statement.
The pilot was recovered from about 25 km northeast of Suratgarh base.
The aircraft wreckage fell on a house in Bahlol Nagar in the Hanumangarh District, unfortunately leading to the loss of three lives, the IAF said. A Court of Inquiry has been constituted to ascertain the cause of the accident.
In a tragic accident in July 2022, a twin-seater MiG-21 trainer crashed in Rajasthan, killing both the pilots onboard, Wing Commander M. Rana and Flight Lieutenant Advitiya Bal.
The IAF, which currently has 31 fighter squadrons, operates three MiG-21 Bison squadrons in service which will be phased out by 2025, one each every year. An Air Force representative recently informed the parliamentary standing committee on defence that their phase out is essential.
The MIG-21 was inducted into the IAF in the early 1960s, and since then, more than 800 variants of the supersonic fighter were inducted into service and remained the frontline fighter jet of the force for a long time. During this period, there were over 400 accidents involving the jet which claimed the lives of around 200 pilots.
