"From an all-time high of 1.84 accidents per 10,000 hours of flying in 1972-73, we have brought down the accident rate to all-time low of 0.44 accidents per 10,000 hours of flying in 2005-06," Air Marshal P S Ahluwalia, Director General Flight Safety and Inspections at IAF headquarters said in New Delhi.

"Fighters registered a 57 per cent drop in the accident rate, helicopters by 15 per cent and trainer fleet by eight per cent," Ahluwalia said claiming that the IAF was now on par with air forces like United States Air Force, Russian, Royal British and French air forces in its safety record.

Attributing the improvement in flight safety to identifying the root causes of accidents and effecting improvement in technology, training of personnel and operating atmosphere, the officer said IAF did not intend to rest on its oars and wanted to institutionalise safety measures.

As part of new safer flying measures, Ahluwalia said the IAF was in the process of inducting flying simulators for all types of fighters in its inventory and also going in for tie-ups with other countries to use their flying simulators on payment.