November 15, 2002	Friday	Ramazan 9, 1423

NEW DELHI, Nov 14: Top commanders from the United States air force and its crash-ridden Indian counterpart on Thursday pledged to intensify cooperation but shied away from offering a peek into each others combat technologies.

The two sides met here to review the progress in cooperation between the two air forces and discussed programmes for the future, said Lieutenant General Steven Polk, vice chief of the US Pacific Air Command, in New Delhi.

“We have made good progress in areas of subject matters exchanges, visits, seminar as well as joint exercises,” he said.

The high-level meeting was held against the backdrop of a crash earlier on Thursday of yet another Indian air force MiG-21 trainer jet, which killed both the pilots in the state of West Bengal.

Both Polk and his Indian counterpart, air vice chief S.G. Imamdar, insisted that bilateral cooperation in fields such as training and exchange of notes were on course regarding transport aircraft.

“We covered very large areas to acquaint each other with the operating procedures, training and expertise areas such as mountains, jungles and the sea,” Imamdar said.

“The Americans offer from the experience they have gathered globally,” he said, adding the two sides, which until the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union treated each other as pariahs, would jack up cooperation to helicopters in 2004.

“We are working on a very large spectrum and we have vast ground to cover before we induct combat aircraft into training,” he said in reply to questions whether US pilots would be allowed to fly India’s Sukhoi-30MKI frontline jets acquired recently from Russia.

Polk also said joint exercises, which took Indian planes to Alaska and brought US forces to Agra, would remain confined to less strategic areas of military transporters.

“We are very early into the process,” Polk said in reply to similar queries on whether Indian fliers would get the opportunity to fly US air force frontline military jets during joint exercises.

The Agra event in May was the first joint exercises between the countries in 39 years while the meeting in Alaska was held last month.

India and France are slated to conduct their first-ever joint exercises involving the latest fighter jets later this year.

Despite the reluctance to share classified aviation technologies, both India and the US have chalked out a timetable for a series of joint exercises as part of their bilateral agreement to boost military-to-military contacts.

The two sides have been firming up plans for five joint projects between their militaries including an air force exercise by year’s end in the US territory of Guam, in the Pacific Ocean, and another session in Alaska next year.

Military cooperation between New Delhi and Washington had all but stopped in the wake of New Delhi’s nuclear tests in 1998, which prompted a raft of US sanctions.

But relations warmed following then president Bill Clinton’s visit to India in 2000 and all remaining sanctions were lifted last year.

FERNANDES: Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes said on Thursday there were no technical flaws in India’s fleet of Mig aircraft, despite yet another one crashing earlier in the day and killing two pilots.

“A team of Russian experts along with our own technicians have been going from airbase to airbase to inspect the Mig aircraft. So far they have not found any technical fault in them,” Fernandes told a news conference in New Delhi.

The Indian air force has been plagued by crashes in the recent past, particularly of the Mig aircraft.

Fernandes said Thursday’s crash was probably due not to a technical fault, but pilot error.

“The pilots who were inside misjudged the depth of the cloud cover and probably thought they could descend through it and land. However, they probably found thick clouds even at lower levels, and decided to eject,” Fernandes said.

“But they were unable to jump out safely because of the loss in height and both the trainer and the trainee pilot died,” he added.

According to official figures, at least 221 MiG-21s, worth tens of millions of dollars, were lost in crashes between 1991 and 2000, killing around 100 pilots.

Last week a Jaguar fighter jet crashed into a residential area in Ambala, killing 12 people.

Following the crash of the British-made Jaguar aircraft, a high-level meeting chaired by Defence Minister George Fernandes decided to phase out the aging MiG-21 fleet.