On the threshold of a full-fledged upgrade programme, an IAF MiG-29 fighter crashed outside Ambala this afternoon. Though the pilot ejected safely, this is the second crash this year of what is considered one of the safest jets by the IAF in its current fighter inventory.

The safety record of MiG-29— eight crashes since its induction two decades ago— has been beaten only by the Mirage-2000.

The pilot, Squadron Leader Naik from the Adampur base— home to the only two MiG-29 squadrons— took off this afternoon on a training mission and ejected after, what initial reports from the IAF suggest, was an engine fault. Just over three months ago on June 8, another MiG-29 plunged into the sea off the Gujarat coast, though both its pilots Wg Cdr A Nautiyal and Sqn Ldr NK Mahal managed to bail out safely.

Today’s crash effectively removes the MiG-29 from its so far enviable position of sustaining only one or zero crashes per year since the first went down in 1994. The MiG-29 has also always been the IAF’s unofficial counter to public perceptions that MiGs are unsafe, a widely view held due to the high number of MiG-21 crashes. The MiG-29, in fact, shines as far as safety is concerned, if compared to the other two MiG aircrafts as well— the MiG-23 and MiG-27 which have much poorer safety records.

Part of the IAF’s frontline air superiority fleet located 100-km away from the Pakistan border, the MiG-29s are in fact about to be put through extensive upgradation. Moscow has transferred technology to HAL to build next generation Klimov RD-33 engines at its Koraput facility which will replace the twin engines that it currently uses. Russia’s Chernyshev facility is to supply 20 such engines to HAL in December to begin a trial and sampling process that will also prepare HAL to build the RD-33 Sea Wasp engine for the Navy’s MiG-29K carrier-based fighters that will come with the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier, currently under refit in Severodvinsk.

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