The Hindu : Two IAF pilots killed in MiG crash

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Nov 15, 2002

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Two IAF pilots killed in MiG crash

By Our Special Correspondent

Air Force personnel inspecting the wreckage of the Indian Air Force training aircraft MiG F/L which crashed at the Bhojnarayan Tea Garden, 12 km from Bagdogra airport, in Darjeeling district on Thursday. — PTI

NEW DELHI Nov. 14. Two pilots were killed after a MiG trainer aircraft crashed into a tea estate in north Bengal early today. The crash took place within a week of a meeting convened by the Defence Minister, George Fernandes, at the Air Headquarters here to ``get to the root of the problem'' following a Jaguar crash in a north Indian township killing several civilians.

The bodies of the pilot, Naresh Dogra and the trainee pilot, A. K. Chauhan, were badly charred. The Eastern Air Command's Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, M.B. Madon, had arrived at the crash spot, 15 km away from the airfield by the afternoon. Officers said the Wing Commander Dogra as an experienced pilot and ascribed the crash to bad luck, very similar to another MiG-21 crash near Bikaner earlier this year.

They said three MiG-21 aircraft were in the air when a cloud-cover came over the air base. This aircraft, which had already flown for 30 minutes, could not be diverted to an alternate air base as there was fuel left for only 10 more minutes of flying. The pilot had no choice but to take a chance and while diving through the cloud cover, he made a fatal error of judgment. The MiG is a low-technology aircraft with no navigational aids. Senior IAF officers maintained that no technical defect was envisaged. The black box had been recovered from the accident site.

The 22nd military aviation crash this year took place even as a joint team of experts from Russia, the IAF and its Indian manufacturers, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is inspecting the maintenance procedures and inspecting spares at MiG-21 airbases to throw up solutions that could avoid its embarrassingly frequent crashes. According to Mr. Fernandes, the expert team has not found any defect so far in the MiGs.

The IAF was forced to convert two squadrons of the oldest MiG fighters in its inventory into trainer aircraft due to the absence of a supersonic trainer. Part of the MiG Operational Flight Training Unit (MOFTU), these are to be phased out in the next two to three years, said the Chief of Air Staff, S. Krishnaswamy. They are likely to be replaced by other MiG variants, possibly the Type 96, till the Government musters the political courage to decide on an advanced jet trainer.

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