India plans to replace its MiGs with 123 modern aircraft in a deal worth $12 billion. – File photo by AFP

NEW DELHI: Dubbed “flying coffins” or “widow makers” in the air force, India’s ageing collection of Soviet-era MiGs have long been unpopular with air force pilots. New figures unveiled Wednesday show why.

India’s Defence Minister A.K. Antony said there had been 482 accidents in the last 30 years, resulting in the deaths of 171 pilots and 39 civilians. The MiG fleet is now 873-strong.

New Delhi’s acquisitions began in 1966 with MiG-21 interceptors, and the next two decades saw the induction of the high-speed MiG 25, ground-attack MiG 27 and the fourth-generation MiG-29 fighter jets into the Indian Air Force.

Experts say a majority of the accidents involved India’s single-engine-based MiG-21s, a combat aeroplane which has been flown by some 50 countries since it was developed by then Soviet Union in the 1950s.

“A total of 171 pilots, 39 civilians, eight service personnel and one aircrew lost their lives in these accidents,” the defence minister told parliament, referring to the period from 1971-1972 to April 19 this year.

The accidents were blamed on “human error and technical defects”.

Antony in February said that the Indian Air Force would start phasing out its mainstay MiG-21s, comprising 40 per cent of its total fleet, beginning 2014.

Recurring crashes involving the single-engine MiG-21 inspired Bollywood film “Rang De Basanti” (Color It Saffron) in 2006, and sparked a spirited campaign in 2003 by relatives of a killed pilot for the scrapping of the war jets.

India plans to replace its MiGs with 123 modern aircraft in a deal worth $12 billion. France’s Dassault Aviation in January won the right to enter exclusive negotiations to sell its Rafale planes.

Price negotiations are currently under way between the French firm and India.