I'M AFRAID OF THE RUSSIANS; CAN'T SLEEP AT NIGHT

New offensive against killer Indian jets (Raju Bist, 6/23/03, Asia Times)

In the past three years alone, 48 MiGs have crashed while on training flights. In most of the cases, the pilots have died. There have also been cases where the pilots have managed to bail out, but the fighter planes have plummeted into thickly-populated areas, killing innocent civilians. In the latest accident, a MiG-21 fighter jet crashed in Rajasthan, killing the pilot, in early June.

So immunized by a sense of deja vu, news editors of major Indian publications buried the Gadgil story - as they have subsequent accidents - in the inner pages. Two months later, two more IAF pilots, Naresh Dogra and A K Chauhan, were killed when their MiG-21 crashed into a tea estate in the east Indian state of West Bengal. It was the 22nd IAF crash that year. It took place within a week of a meeting convened by India's Defense Minister, George Fernandes, at the air headquarters in New Delhi to "get to the root of the problem" following the frequent crashes. The Indian public has not been told what happened at, or after, the meeting.

What happened? You're using Soviet weaponry, that's what happened. You should see what would happen to them in combat. Remind me again why we just didn't juke it out with those knuckle-draggers... Posted by Orrin Judd at June 24, 2003 9:25 AM