IAF loses 2nd Jaguar in crash this year

Ajay Banerjee

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 16

A Jaguar fighter aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) crashed near Allahabad on Tuesday, the eighth crash this year and the second Jaguar crash. Both pilots ejected safely.

Since June 2010, the IAF, on an average, has been reporting a plane crash every 37 days. The IAF data on flight crash shows that there have been 50 IAF crashes in the past 60 months. Since January this year, two MiG-27, a Sukhoi-30 MKI, a MiG-21, a Mi-35 attack helicopter, a hawk advanced jet trainer have crashed.

The records of the IAF from June 2010 onwards show that besides the fighter jets, transport planes and even the sophisticated special operation plane, the C-130-J have crashed.

Each plane costs million of dollars and the crashes, especially of the Sukhoi, have raised questions on the readiness of the 200-strong fleet of the plane.

In April 2015, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on defence questioned frequent crashes. The panel headed by Major General BC Khanduri (retd), now a BJP MP from Uttarakhand, studied a period between starting May 2007 and January 31, 2015, and its report concluded that “The committee is baffled to find that these accidents have been consistent over the past decade… the rate of accidents has not come down.”

The panel said, “It is evident that there is either a lacuna in training or the systems installed are technically ill-equipped. In both cases, the onus lies on the senior management.”