NEW DELHI, April 7: The Indian Air Force (IAF) will mothball its 30-year-old Soviet-era spy planes and show them to the public for the first time, a spokesman said on Friday.

May 1 will be the last day of service for the four surviving MiG-25s, which joined the secretive Trisonics Squadron in 1981, air force spokesman Sanjay Sharma said.

A fifth Soviet-built MiG-25 crashed earlier this year during an unspecified mission in India.

Air Vice Marshal S. Mukherjee said the four remaining MiG-25s, which could fly three times the speed of sound and at an altitude of 80,000 feet, will be showcased at various IAF installations after their retirement.

“It will be a nostalgic event and a flypast will be held,” he said of Trisonics Squadron 102 which originally had 10 MiG-25 each fitted with three high-resolution reconnaissance cameras.

India christened the MiG-25 after the Hindu mythological eagle king Garuda and deployed the squadron at an ultra-secret location. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) code-named it Foxbat after the enigmatic flying mammal.—AFP