The fleeting life of the Indian pilots of the MiG-21 flying with life in hand

- At a glance - Hershal Pushkarna

- A literal tribute to pilots like Abhinav Chaudhary, a squaw drone leader who died in the so-called 'flying coffin' MiG-21.

Wisek is a true event that happened years ago. The date was September 12, 2001 and the time was night. A team of MiG-21s was preparing to take off at the Indian Air Force station in Suratgarh, Rajasthan. It is a daily routine for the Air Force to conduct a 'test flight' so that pilots can practice flying in the dark of night. The main objective of the 'test flight' is to fly the MiG-21s in a group of five to seven and return to Khedi during which the instructors of the Air Force monitor the performance of the pilot of each aircraft.

On the night of September 15, 2001, 9-year-old Flight Lieutenant Abhijit Gadgil was stationed at Suratgarh Air Force Station. He did not have to take any more flights as his quota had been exhausted for the day. But at night, one of the pilots had to be absent due to ill health. The game of luck or the duty to fill its vacancies fell on the head of Lieutenant Abhijit Gadgil. Gadgil, who has extensive aviation experience, was accommodated in the cockpit of his MiG-21. Fellow pilots also brought their plane to the edge of the runway and, with the approval of take-off from the control tower, increased the engine power with the throttle and made the MiG-21 run smoothly on the runway. In a few seconds, all the MiG-21s flew into the sky, roaring the atmosphere of Suratgarh.

Flight Lieutenant Abhijit Gadgil's plane had barely reached altitude when an unexpected event occurred. A technical defect occurred in the Play Nana engine. The MiG-21, which weighs 5,000 kilograms, is no longer engineered. As a result, the front of the plane began to lean forward. In technical terms, Flight Lieutenant Abhijit Gadgil's MiG-21 nose dive began to hit. The plane crashed to the ground before it had a chance to control the situation. Flight Lieutenant Abhijit Gadgil was killed instantly. Complete the game of luck in just 3 seconds after the plane lifted its wheels from the runway of Suratgarh!

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When the news reached Abhijit's parents late at night, they were stunned. There is no greater grief for a mother than the loss of a young son, and no greater a mental burden for a father than to shoulder his earthly body. But did the parents know that they were about to be struck with a more deadly diamond than this?

It so happened that both of them wanted to know the root cause of the death of their son Abhijit. Zane approached the Indian Air Force. In response, the chief minister said, "The accident was due to the incompetence of Flight Lieutenant Abhijit Gadgil. The rest of the MiG-21 they were riding in had no technical defects.

Capt. Anil Gadgil, Abhijit's father, was shocked to hear this reply. Captain Anil Gadgil, who has served in the Air Force for twenty years as a fighter pilot and took an active part in the 181 Indo-Pak war, found such a statement inconsistent. Instead, he felt that the Air Force had tarnished the image of Flight Lieutenant Abhijit Gadgil.

The reason for such a feeling was natural. Pilots like Flight Lieutenant Abhijit Gadgil have to go through a lot of training before operating a MiG-21. Candidates who want to become fighter pilots are given a thorough knowledge of aviation in the initial stages called Stage-0 and Stage-1. The duration of both the phases should be 2-3 months. By the time Stage-1 is completed, every novice pilot has been flying a small aircraft in a colorful way. In the next room of Stage J-2 and Stange-3, the pilot has to undergo 3 plus 5 weeks of intensive training in which to fly a jet.

Get up at 9:00 a.m. every morning while training is underway, get ready as soon as possible to get to Mission Control Center, understand the flight route with the Air Force instructors present there, have breakfast on time and board the plane at exactly 8:00 a.m. Getting Stange-2 and Stage-3 is a training routine. Given that the MiG-21 has to be flown for a minimum of 6 hours a day and a maximum of 3 hours a day during this period, it is not possible for a pilot who has completed training (like Flight Lieutenant Abhijit Gadgil) to crash the play by showing 'incompetence'. Captain Gadgil firmly believed that the problem was not the pilot but the MiG-21 itself — and there were enough reasons to confirm his validity. like...

If you look at the history of the original Russian-made MiG-21 aircraft, which has been serving in the Indian Air Force for over 150 years, the list of accidents is very long. A total of 8 MiG-21s were periodically procured from Russia, half of which have crashed due to mechanical malfunctions in the skies. In all, 135 pilots and about 60 civilians were killed in those accidents. Given the track record of the MiG-21, it has been dubbed the 'Flying Coffin'. There are two main reasons why an airplane that was created to float in the sky crashed:

(1) When a modern twin-engine aircraft like Sukhoi-30 flies in the sky, there is no reason to worry even if one of its engines crashes. The second engine in the equipment can keep the Sukhoi-30 afloat. The MiG-21 does not get such an advantage, as it is a single engine pelvis. The flight capacity of an aircraft is not without its dangers if a single engine in any of the numerous components is involved. With the elimination of the inevitable force called thrust from the engine, the MiG-21 drops to the ground like water. The momentum is so intense that the pilot has only a second to save his life and every second he spends pushing him closer to death.

(2) During a life-and-death countdown, the pilot often leaves the plane by pressing the eject button using a timer. But the mechanical as well as electrical arrangements made in the MiG-21 in the name of pilot safety management have now become obsolete. That’s a big reason our pilots are victims in accidents. Often the ejection seat system is betrayed. The pilot's escape then becomes impossible. The pilot knows what is going on in Ray's mind when death is looming in front of his eyes.

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Captain Anil Gadgil and his wife Kavita Gadgil went to the government to clean up the tarnished image of Sadgat's son Flight Lieutenant Abhijit. A few months after the disaster, Capt. Anil wrote a letter to the Air Force requesting that the Air Force should change the earlier statement as it was unethical.

But the 'falling star' named MiG-21 was the star of the Indian Air Force's eye. Thus the chief officers remained adamant on their statement. On the contrary, he cashed in a letter to Captain Gadgil stating that Flight Lieutenant Abhijit was a weak pilot. Such a blatant false accusation was a blow to the parents. However, the Gadgil couple did not give up. He met the then Defense Minister George Fernandes and the nation's husband Abdul Kalam in person. Protested against the Air Force's use of the pilot's "incompetence" to cover up the mechanical defects of the antiquated MiG-21 aircraft.

After a long period of penance, mental anguish and a stigma, it was time for the Gadgil couple to finally breathe a sigh of relief. Not only did the Air Force withdraw all earlier statements about Flight Lieutenant Abhijit Gadgil, but Air Chief Marshal Tyaggi also wrote a letter of apology to the Gadgil couple. The stigma attached to his son's image was erased.

This is probably the first time that the above-mentioned Mig-21 technical flaws have caught the attention of the media and the filmmaker Rakesh Omprakash Mehra's 'Rang De Basanti' (with changes).

But then the hour and today's day! Instead of scrapping the 'old' MiG-21, which has reached retirement age, it still has a lot of work to do. It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post, as the Air Force believes the enhanced version of the MiG-21 is more reliable than ever before.

So what's wrong with that? In an airplane worth Rs 7 crore or in a pilot trained for one and a half years at a cost of Rs 50 crore?

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Finally, remember the 9-year-old pilot squadron leader Abhinav Chaudhary, whose death was caused by the MiG-21. The 9-year-old Abhinav flew from Suratgarh Airbase in Rajasthan on May 21, 2021. When his plane was in the skies of Punjab, there was a problem in the engine. Determined to crash landing, he pressed the eject button into the cockpit to abandon his MiG-21 in time. At the second moment, the transparent glass canopy fell off and at the third moment, Abhinav Chaudhary was thrown out with his chair (ejection seat). It is true that the aerial umbrella was opened for a light landing on the ground, but before the rate of fall was brought under control, Abhinav Chaudhary hit hard with the ground. The sharp shock shattered the neck bead. The spinal cord is broken. Squadron Leader Abhinav Chaudhary immediately passed away. The parents lost their young son, his wife's married life came to an end in just 18 months and we lost a future warrior who was prepared by the Indian Air Force with great effort and great expense.

In March 2021, another MiG-21 crashed due to mechanical malfunction and a young pilot named Group Captain Ashish Gupta died in a tragic accident. He tried to leave the cockpit of the plane crashing towards the ground, but the ejection system betrayed him at the right time and Ashish Guptakh crashed to the ground along with the plane.

Many other young pilots like Abhijit Gadgil, Abhinav Chaudhary and Ashish Gupta have died in MiG-21 accidents. All this ephemeral life is expressed in Sahir Ludhianvi's song: Pal do pal meri jawani hai!

A salute to the heroes! Jai Hind. Jai Hind Ki Sena