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.

A new generation MiG-29, designated MiG-35, is also in contention for the IAF’s upcoming global contract for 126 new fighters.