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MiG experts blame HAL for crashes: Izvestia

The public-sector Hindustan Aeronautics Limited supplied "substandard and uncertified" spares to the Indian Air Force, resulting in a spate of MiG-21 fighter aircraft crashes, a leading Russian daily reported on Sunday quoting unnamed military experts.

Izvestia said, quoting the experts, that certified spares imported from Russia were being re-exported by HAL to Algeria and Vietnam while the IAF was being supplied with "cheap and uncertified spares picked from former Warsaw Pact countries in Eastern Europe and CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] countries".

Izvestia believes the so-called MiG-21 scandal has been fanned in India by vested interests to pave the way for the purchase of the Hawk jet trainer from Britain and to keep the Russian MiG-AT and Yak-130 advanced trainers out of the fray.

Against this backdrop, to protect the prestige of its brand, Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG is seeking access to the investigation into the crashes of MiG-21 jets, insiders told the Press Trust of India in Moscow.

RAC MiG is likely to ask the IAF to give the serial numbers of the jets involved in the accidents since they suspect that Russia never supplied these planes to India and HAL had no licence for their indigenous production.

RAC MiG insiders say that in 1995-97, through a British company, the IAF acquired a number of twin-seater MiG-21 jet trainers from Kazakhstan, Moldova and Romania. In some cases, they were the product of 'cannibalisation', with front portion picked in one country, wings in another and engine in a third.

Some of these planes were delivered to the IAF after overhauling in Romania while some were overhauled on the IAF's orders by HAL in India, the sources told PTI.

The Russian side raised some of these issues last month at the Moscow session of the Indo-Russian sub-group on aviation attended by senior officials of HAL and IAF.

PTI

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