(Image source from: MiG-29 fighter jet crashed in Jamnagar base Gujarat})

The mournful accident of an MiG-29 fighter aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) gets its prominence. The fighter jet known to have crashed in a farm near its Jamnagar base in Gujarat during Friday.

To move ahead, the unaccompanied pilot, who was airborne on a routine flying training sortie in precedence of noon, ejected safely yet IAF officers who immediately flew to the spot in two helicopters rushed him to the base hospital in Jamnagar which is 280 km from there. The Southern Western Area Command (SWAC) under whose jurisdiction Gujarat comes, has ordered a court of inquiry into the cause of the accident. A MiG-29 of IAF’s Jamnagar base had also crashed on June 25 this year at Khambhalia taluka of Jamnagar district and another MiG-29 had crashed in the Gulf of Kutch in 2008 as well.

The Jamnagar IAF station which happens to be an important, strategically located base near the Pakistan border for Dragon Squadron of Jaguars and First Supersonics of MiG-29s, regularly carries out exercises accompanying other wings of the Indian armed forces and also air forces of the other nations. In 2009 and 2011, it had carried out successful air exercises with Royal Air Force of Oman.

The country’s military has been undergoing trouble by constant deadly accidents due to obsolete hardware. Beyond half of the 872 MiG fighters India bought from Moscow since the early 1960s have crashed with the result that the MiGs have been dubbed as flying coffins. India takes into consideration a plan to spend nearly $100 billion over the next 10 years to upgrade largely Soviet-era military equipment.

That's certainly unfortunate!

(AW:SB)