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IAF investigators blame bird hit for MiG-21 crash

Preliminary investigations into Saturday's MiG-21 fighter crash at the Palam Air Force station in Delhi has pinpointed a bird hit on the engine air intake of the aircraft as the cause of the accident.

Defence ministry sources said the remains of a bird were found stuck in the intake and the ingestion could well have caused a flame-out soon as the aircraft got airborne.

The young pilot, Flight Lieutenant Shreya Shukla, was killed in the crash.

The MiG-21 crashed at about 1320 IST on the runway while taking off for Chandigarh after being on static display during the Kargil Victory Day celebrations.

A court of inquiry into the crash is already in progress.

This was the seventh crash of a MiG since April. In the last four years the IAF has lost 59 fighter planes, 55 of them of the MiG series.

Hours after the crash, highly placed sources said a bird got sucked into the nose of the warplane, which hit the ground and drifted for about 100 metres before bursting into flames.

The plane from the Chandigarh-based 21 Squadron had been brought to Delhi for static display at an exhibition on the India Gate lawns.

The sources said there was no question of an explosion, as reported by some eyewitnesses, because it caught fire only after it had gone some 100 metres on the grass, which was intact.

This was the first accident involving an IAF plane in Delhi since the crash of the Antonov 32 in 1998. The last time a fighter crashed in the capital was in 1989 during a demonstration.

UNI

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