IAF MiG-21 Bison crashes in Rajasthan, pilot safe
Synopsis
The incident took place around 8:15 pm during a training sortie. The pilot of the aircraft managed to eject safely.
An Indian Air Force MiG-21 aircraft crashed on Tuesday night near Suratgarh in Rajasthan.
The incident took place around 8:15 pm during a training sortie.
The pilot of the aircraft managed to eject safely.
The Indian Air Force took to Twitter to announce, "During a training sortie in the western sector, a MiG-21 Bison aircraft experienced a major technical malfunction. The pilot ejected safely at about 2015 hours. There is no loss of life," the IAF tweeted.
A Court of Inquiry has been instituted.
The third-generation, multirole MiG-21 aircraft of the IAF have been accident-prone.
In 2019, another MiG-21 Bison aircraft that was airborne from Air Force Station Nal for a routine sortie crashed near Bikaner in Rajasthan. Initial inputs had indicated the likely cause of the accident as bird-hit after take off.
The air defence aircraft has a maximum speed of 2,230 kilometres per hour or Mach 2.1 and carries one 23mm twin-barrel cannon with four R-60 close combat missiles.
The MiG-21 Bison are in the final phase of service and are slated to be phased out over the next decade.