NEW DELHI, May 8: Three civilians on the ground were killed and three others were injured when the wreckage of an Indian Air Force (IAF) MiG-21 fighter jet, which crashed near Suratgarh in Rajasthan at about 09:45 hours, fell on a house on Monday.
The pilot had ejected safely, sustaining minor injuries and was later rescued about 25 kilometres from the Suratgarh base. All the three deceased were women.
The aircraft had taken off from the Suratgarh airbase for a routine exercise when it crashed near Bahlol Nagar in Rajasthan’s Hanumangarh due to a technical snag, officials said.
“The aircraft had got airborne for a routine operational training sortie from the Air Force Station at Suratgarh. Soon thereafter, the pilot experienced an onboard emergency, following which he attempted to recover the aircraft as per existing procedures. Having failed to do so, he initiated an ejection, sustaining minor injuries in the process,” the IAF said in a statement.
The IAF said a helicopter was rushed to rescue the pilot. A probe has been ordered to ascertain the cause of the crash. “An inquiry has been constituted to ascertain the cause of the accident.”
Recounting the incident, a local said he heard a loud sound and saw a parachute coming down. Within seconds, a plane crashed into the house of Ratti Ram, killing his wife and two other women – Leela Devi and Banto Kaur,” the villagers said. The villagers tried to douse the flames with the help of water and sand before the police and fire brigade reached the spot,” an official said.
Police said a rescue operation has been launched in the area where the aircraft had crashed. “The pilot made all efforts to avert human casualties and crash-landed the plane on the outskirts of the village,” said Om Prakash, Inspector General of Police, Bikaner.
In January, two IAF fighter jets – a Sukhoi Su-30 and a Mirage 2000 – had crashed during a training exercise, resulting in the death of one pilot. While one aircraft crashed in Morena in Madhya Pradesh, the other went down 100 km away in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur. In a tragic accident in July 2022, a twin-seater MiG-21 trainer had crashed in Rajasthan killing both the pilots onboard, Wing Commander M. Rana and Flight Lieutenant Advitiya Bal.
The IAF, which currently has 31 fighter squadrons, operates three MiG-21 Bison squadrons in service which will be phased out by 2025, one each every year. An Air Force representative recently informed the parliamentary standing committee on defence that their phase out is essential.
The MIG-21 was inducted into the IAF in the early 1960s, and since then, more than 800 variants of the supersonic fighter were inducted into service and remained the frontline fighter jet of the force for a long time. During this period, there were over 400 accidents involving the jet which claimed the lives of around 200 pilots.
(Manas Dasgupta)