MiG-21s well past their retirement age: Here's why IAF needs new jets

As aircraft age, the number of failures due to the ageing of their functional equipment or system components grows

The MiG-21 Bison that Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was flying when he was downed by a Pakistan Air Force F-16 was well past its retirement age, and kept alive with repeated upgrades and service life extensions, experts have told IndiaSpend.

The accident-prone Russian-made MiGs--482 of which were lost to accidents between 1971 and April 2012, averaging nearly 12 a year--were first inducted into the Indian Air Force in the mid-1960s. These were to retire by the mid-1990s, but were upgraded to Bison standard, even as successive variants were inducted until the 1980s.

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