As fatal accidents mount, experts question HAL’s delays, outdated platforms, and the Indian government’s stalled defence overhaul.
Since 1970 more than 170 Indian pilots and 40 civilians have been killed in MiG-21 accidents, thus the unofficial nickname “flying coffin”. Over half of the 840 aircraft built between 1966 and 1984 were lost to crashes.
In an eerie resemblance to the MiG-21 fighter jet crashes over a decade and a half ago, another Jaguar aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) has crashed—the third in five months—raising serious questions over their maintenance and upkeep. In all, three IAF pilots were killed. It also raises questions over the Indian government’s approach to keep the ageing platforms in operation.
There have been over a dozen Jaguar crashes in the past decade. Across the Armed Forces, there were 34 aircraft accidents from 2017-18 to 2021-22. Nine of these accidents involved MiG-21 aircraft; and the remaining involved MiG-27 and Jaguar type aircraft, among others. Courts of inquiry found that 19 of these were due to human error.
In the latest crash on July 9, a 32-year-old Squadron Leader and a 23-year-old Flight Lieutenant were killed when their twin-seater fighter jet, on a routine training mission, lost control over Churu in Rajasthan. A Court of Inquiry have been set up to investigate the causes.
A total of 26 MIG-29 and its variant were crashed in India since Indian Air Force and Navy inducted those aircraft.
In April, a twin-seater Jaguar on a night training sortie crashed in Jamnagar, near the South Western Air Command headquarters in Gujarat, due to a technical malfunction. One pilot was killed while the other managed to eject safely. In March, when another aircraft of the same make on a routine training mission crashed in Haryana’s Panchkula, the pilot managed to eject to safety. In both cases, Courts of Inquiry were set up but the outcome is usually not published. There has been no civilian casualty in any of these crashes—a remarkable achievement.
India has 120 Jaguars, made by France and the UK, according to news reports. The first such fighters were inducted into the IAF in 1979. Most other air forces in the world have retired the Jaguars but in the IAF, they still remain a major part of India’s deep penetration and strike capabilities.
“These are dangerous, old machines, unfit for modern war,” says Pravin Sawhney, former Indian Army officer, who edits FORCE, a national security and defence magazine, told Frontline. “These are decades old. Then, there is a problem of spare parts because the original equipment manufacturers have shut shop. The Air Chief himself has said that HAL [Hindustan Aeronautics Limited] has not been able to meet any of the deadlines set,” he added.
The Indian Defence Ministry’s 2017-18 Annual Report speaks of the upgrade of the Jaguars: “Jaguar aircraft is being upgraded to DARIN [Digital Avionics Réseau Integrated System]-III standards, which involves integration of advanced avionics. With integration of air-to-air and anti-ship weapon systems compatible with the avionics of DARIN-III aircraft, the war waging potential of Jaguar would vastly improve.” In the 2021-22 report, the details are bare, but there is a mention of ongoing upgradation work for Su-30 MKI, Mirage 2000, and Jaguars (with DARIN-III and total technical life extension).
There is a catch in this upgrade. “I am told that as part of DARIN upgrade, they have installed the ISA [inverse synthetic-aperture] radar. ISA gives it a long range. But the question is does it have Beyond Visual Range [BVR] capability [to launch an air-to-air missile and destroy a target beyond what the pilot can see]. I don’t think so. So, it comes back to the same problem. On an old platform you can only do so much upgrade. The question then is, what use are these platforms,” Sawhney said.
Regional force projection
The IAF can ill afford to dismantle all squadrons with obsolete equipment, since these are required to show numbers in a regional force projection exercise, according to experts. They said that the night of May 6 and the morning of May 7—in the BVR engagement with the Pakistani Air Force during Operation Sindoor—proved that this force projection exercise did not mean anything more than merely showing physical numbers, and there was no alternative other than to modernise faster.
The report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence (2024-25) noted an IAF officer’s oral observation that ageing fighter aircraft pose a problem of maintaining the edge. The report, submitted to both Houses of Parliament in December 2024, said: “During oral evidence, on modernization, a representative of the Air Force apprised the Committee as under: ‘Parallelly, with the objective of maintaining the qualitative status with respect to our adversaries, IAF has, over the years, upgraded its legacy fleets and brought them to near 4th Generation Capability. However, because of their vintage, some sustenance issues do exist.’”
Asked if this assertion about 4th generation capability could be true, Sawhney said it was not possible. “It is not 4th generation. If it is 4th generation, there would be BVR,” he said, offering the analogy of the revered Ambassador car of the 1950s and 1960s. “In the end, the platform is the same. The point is that you can only do so much of upgrade on such an old platform…When the Indian Army says it has 60-70 per cent legacy platforms, it is different from the Air Force being in the same space. You can manage somewhat with legacy platforms on the ground. If you are in the air, it’s a no contest with obsolete equipment,” he added.
The Standing Committee report clearly outlined the force level issues: “On the issue of depletion in squadron strength, the Ministry apprised the Committee that the number of fighter squadrons has reduced in the recent years due to phasing out of ageing variants of MiG-21, MiG-23 & MiG-27 aircraft. The shortage in number of fighter squadrons is being addressed through multi-pronged approaches to minimize the impact.” The newer Rafale inductions are just ongoing—meaning that older fighter aircraft, with barely any modernisation, are forced to be part of the offensive and defensive squadrons.
Su-30MKI crashes
India currently operates 272 Su-30MKIs. Under the Super-30 project, 84 of these jets are reportedly being planned for an upgrade over the next 3–4 years. The upgrade is expected to cost between $2.4 and $7.8 billion (₹66,829 crore), as reported by India Defense News.
After seven years of incident free flying, the first major accident involving this aircraft happened on April 30, 2009 when a Su-30 from No. 30 Squadron crashed in Rajasthan. Both pilots ejected, but one succumbed to injuries. Some reports later said that the crew had inadvertently switched off the aircraft’s flight control system that led to the crash.
Another aircraft was lost the same year when the aircraft’s engine caught fire during a training sortie over the Pokhran range in November. Both the pilots from 31 Squadron bailed out safely.
Other crashes happened in December 2011, April 2012, February 2013, October 2014, May 2015 and March 2017 during routine sorties and training missions. Some were attributed to technical defects and others to human error.
The crash that took place in 2013 was a result of defective ordnance release during a night sortie over Pokhran range. The live bombs that the aircraft was carrying failed to release and exploded while still attached to the underwing pylons, inflicting serious damage and injuring the pilots, though they managed to bail out and survived.
On May 23, 2017, the IAF lost two pilots from No. 2 Squadron when their aircraft went down in dense forests of the northeast during a training sortie. The aircraft had taken off from Tezpur airbase as part of a two-aircraft formation, lost radar and radio contact with the air traffic control at 11.10 am. The last reported position of the aircraft was 60 km northwest of Tezpur and there were no reports of the pilots having ejected.
Four crashes happened in June 2018, August 2019, January 2023, June 2024. Among them, two involved aircraft at HAL’s Nashik plant in Maharashtra and in both the cases as well as the one in 2024, the pilots bailed out safely.
On January 28, 2023, a Su-30 and a Mirage 2000 from TACDE in Gwalior were involved in a mid-air collision. While the Mirage pilot was unable to eject and died in the accident, the two Su-30 pilots ejected and sustained only minor injuries.
The IAF has experienced some technical issues with the fleet in the past like engine problems and unintended triggering of the ejection seats. The fleet has gone in for several upgradation and capability enhancement programmes with the integration of new avionics, subsystems and weapons sourced from Indian, Russian, Israeli and French agencies.
Machine or human at fault?
The other problem is trained personnel. On the number of authorised trainer aircraft/simulators and their existing strength, the Ministry apprised the Committee as under: “Trainer Aircraft held by IAF currently include Basic Trainer Aircraft, Intermediate Jet Trainer and Advanced Jet Trainer. The strength to existing trainer aircraft is 238 as against the sanctioned strength of 368. Therefore, there is a net deficiency of 130 aircraft.”
But when trained fighter pilots die in routine exercises, it goes much beyond creating anxiety in the force. “Lives are lost when something in a platform like this goes wrong. But if it is a new platform on which there is a problem, then there is the need to immediately figure out what is wrong and fix it,” said Sawhney. In the case of old platforms, regardless of what a Court of Inquiry says, there will always be suspicion that it was the machine, rather than the human operator, that failed.
MiG-29 crashes
| Date | Aircraft Type | Tail No | Pilot/Crew | Unit | Remarks |
| 01 Jun 89 | MiG-29 | KB -714 | Sqn Ldr Rakesh Madan | 47 Sqn | Skid off the runway during take off |
| 13 Oct 90 | MiG-29 | Sqn Ldr Rakesh Madan + | 47 Sqn | Crashed into ground during aerobatics | |
| 20 Nov 91 | MiG-29UB | Sqn Ldr Ramesh Kumar Panda + Flt Lt Nikhil Rohatgi + | 223 Sqn | In Memoriam. Rohtagi mentioned in 29 Sqn history | |
| 09 Feb 94 | MiG-29 | Sqn Ldr Ajay Jasjit Singh | 28 Sqn | Engine failed 45 km from Lohegaon Pt BO | |
| 21 Jan 97 | MiG-29 | KB-738 | Air Cmde Chittalore Doraiswami Chandrasekhar + | 28 Sqn | FCS warning, Auxilery power unit failed near Lohegaon AFB during Emergency landing |
| 06 Aug 99 | MiG-29 | Flt Lt Gaurav Chibber + | 223 Sqn | Engine failed in Nainadevi Area Himachal Pt K | |
| 04 Jul 01 | MiG-29 | Sqn Ldr Sandeep Mehra + | 47 Sqn | Engine failed. Todarpur-Ajnoha Vill at Hoshiarpur Pun. Adampur | |
| 11 Apr 02 | MiG-29 | KB-3126 | Fg Offr Prasanta Kumar Mishra + | 223 Sqn | Engine failed near Karnataka |
| 04 Dec 03 | MiG-29 | KB-736 | Sqn Ldr Pudiapura Jawahar Mohamed | 47 Sqn | Engine failed 25km from Adampur |
| 08 Jun 06 | MiG-29UB | Wg Cdr Aman Nautiyal | 28 Sqn | Ejected on an island off Jamnagar. In-flight fire | |
| 28 Sep 06 | MiG-29 | KB-3299 | 223 Sqn | Pilot ejected after technical fault from Ambala | |
| 21 Nov 06 | MiG-29 | 28 Sqn | FCS warning 5 Km away from Sarmat Range, | ||
| 08 May 07 | MiG-29 | KB-3121 | Lt Cdr Vikramdeep Singh Chauhan | 47 Sqn | Engine problem. Pilot Ejected near Adampur. |
| 01 Sep 08 | MiG-29 | 28 Sqn | Lost control 18,000 feet, ejected into the sea off Kutch | ||
| 18 Oct 11 | MiG-29 | KB-703 | Sqn Ldr Dharmendra Singh Tomar + | 47 Sqn | Crashed during a night-flying exercise in the Laha |
| 24 Jun 13 | MiG-29 | 28 Sqn | A MiG-29 fighter jet on Monday crashed at 13.30 hour | ||
| 25 July 14 | MiG-29 | KB-739 | 28 Sqn | Cr near Jivapur Village, Jamnagar | |
| 03 Jan 18 | MiG-29K | NAVY | An Indian Navy MiG 29K aircraft operating from Navy | ||
| 16 Nov 19 | MiG-29K | Capt M Sheokhand Lt Cdr Deepak Yadav | NAVY | Flameout after Bird strike. Pilots Ejected | |
| 23 Feb 20 | MiG-29K | NAVY | Engine Fire. Pilot Ejected | ||
| 08 May 20 | MiG-29 UPG | 223 Sqn | Ejected near Hoshiarpur | ||
| 26 Nov 20 | MiG-29K | Cdr Nishant Singh+ | NAVY | A MiG-29K trainer aircraft operating at sea | |
| 12 Oct 22 | MiG-29K | NAVY | Crashed in Sea off-Goa. Pilot rescued | ||
| 02 Sep 24 | MiG-29 UPG | KBU-3112 | 47 Sqn | The port undercarriage failed to extend during the night mission | |
| 04 Nov 24 | MiG-29 UPG | KBU-711 | 28 Sqn | Pilot Ejected over Agra |
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