| MiG- Another ANGLE |
| Fighter flying is intrinsically hazardous. Man and machine have to operate at the limit of their capability. In aviation, even a small mistake in judgment or skill could lead to disaster. Human failure, whether at the level of design, manufacture, maintenance or flying, could individually or collectively lead to such mistakes.
Though the MiG-21 technology is of 1960s or 1970s vintage it does not automatically follow that it is unsafe to fly. It is unfair that the sobriquet of ‘Flying Coffin’ has been conferred on a truly versatile flying machine. A MiG-21 pilot of the Indian Air Force has a 99.993 per cent chance of survival compared to 99.99 per cent of an ordinary air passenger in the United States, Air Chief Marshal S Krishnaswamy said in 2003, while making a plea against crucifying the Russian fighter. Krishnaswamy said, "It (MiG-21s) is not falling all over and killing people." He argued that on an average MiG-21 pilot fly two sorties a day up to 20 days a month. "As air chief I will fly the last aircraft out as long as its technical life exists." He said since the IAF's backbone are the MiG-21s, most of the accidents would also involve these Russian fighters, which were inducted into the IAF in the mid-60s. Though there are several accidents involving trucks, the media doesn't nail the truck manufacturers, Krishnaswamy added. In 2001-2002, in 52,300 sorties MiG-21s had seven Cat I accidents in which fighters were lost. In the same period there were seven other Cat I accidents involving all other fighters, which had undertaken only 23,200 sorties, he said. So in a way the MiG-21s have a better track record than other fighters, he added. "See the intensity of flying... But you only see MiG-21 as a coffin," The air force chief said. "We don't understand this. What else do you want us to tell you?" Perturbed Krishnaswamy said, "You can't just retire planes; it is not as simple." To him, asking MiG-21s to be grounded because more of them have crashed is like asking Marutis to be taken off the roads because more Marutis, more of which are there on Indian roads than all other cars, have met with accidents. The major reason for MiG-21s getting a bad name, according to the Air Force, is that there are more of them. As an operations officer explained, there are four times more fighter planes in the Indian skies than commercial planes at any given time, and about three quarters of them are MiG-21s There are hundreds of MiG-21s in the Air Force inventory (more than 600 were built and supplied to IAF), flying 54,100 sorties a year (last five years' average), against a handful of squadrons of Mirages or Jaguars or MiG-29s. "A MiG-21 pilot flies at least 20 times a month, and he is not crashing or killing people," said Krishnaswamy. If MiG-21s had seven category-I accidents (the most serious) in the 54,100 sorties, all other fighter planes in IAF inventory also had seven category-I crashes in almost half as many (23,200) sorties. |
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