Author: Rainbow Kursk
According to Indian media reports, on May 21, a MiG-21 Bis UPG Bison fighter of the Indian Air Force crashed near Moga in Punjab, the third MiG-21 fighter jet crash this year.
At the time of the accident, the plane was undergoing routine training and the fighter crashed in the village of Langiana Khurd around 1 a.m. According to the Indian Air Force, the 29-year-old pilot, Abhinav Choudhary, was mortally wounded and recently died, and his body was cremated in Bagpat, Uttar Pradesh, on May 23.
Indian media released a portrait of the pilot, as well as the wreckage of the fighter jet when it crashed.
Image: The wreckage of the MiG fighter jet when it crashed that night.
Image: Pilot Abinav Chowdhury is only 29 years old, and this is his posthumous portrait with coffin.
MiG-21 fighter is a third-generation fighter (formerly known as the second generation fighter) large-scale equipment of the Indian Air Force, since the 1970s to receive this fighter, has been equipped with thousands of MiG-21 of various types, and as many as 400 MiG-21 fighters crashed on the Indian land, the proportion of crashes is unprecedented.
The MiG-21Bis UPG fighter of this accident is based on the improved program of the Russian MiG-21-93 fighter and is provided by Russia, and the fighter aircraft modified by Hindustan Airlines itself has the ability to launch medium-range air-to-air missiles, and the paper combat power is even claimed to be comparable to that of the "Dragon Fighter".
Therefore, India changed the name of this fighter, which was originally called "Fish Nest", "Bison".
Image: Improved MiG-21Bis UPG fighter.
However, after the aircraft was converted by Hindustan Airlines, the quality did not meet the standards stipulated by the Russian MiG-21-93 fighter program, so there were a large number of crashes!
There have been 3 incidents this year alone, with the exception of the most recent one, when an Indian Bison fighter jet crashed in central India in March, killing the pilot. In January, another MiG-21 crashed during a technical failure near Suratgarh in Rajasthan, and the pilots successfully catapulted it.
The most criticized "Bison" fighter is the air battle with Pakistan, a "Bison" fighter was shot down by an air-to-air missile launched by Pakistani F-16 fighter jets, and the pilot ejected to escape. After being returned to India, the Indian media began to widely publicize the bearded pilot, insisting that he fired a missile to shoot down an F-16 fighter before the fighter was shot down. Even attracted the United States to send special personnel to Pakistan to count, found that there is no less F-16 fighter, but India did not admit it, still referred to as its own MiG-21 fighter jet shot down more than a generation higher F-16 fighter.
Image: India crashed 3 Bison fighter jets this year.
In fact, for the combat performance of the "Bison" fighter, the Indian Air Force and its domestic professional military media are clear, and the Indian Air Force is currently replacing the "Bison" fighter with a domestically produced "Radiance" fighter. Indian military media have also written articles calling on the Indian Air Force to speed up this process and increase the production of the "Tejas" fighter as soon as possible, so that the "Bison", a "widow-making machine", can be retired as soon as possible.
According to the Plan of the Indian Ministry of Defense, the MiG-21 fighter jet and the equally old MiG-27 fighter-bomber will be retired in stages by 2024, which will completely end the "glorious" history of the MiG-21 in the Indian Air Force for decades.
Photo: India will fully replace the MiG-21 fighter jet with the LCA fighter jet in 2024.