Sun sets on India’s iconic and controversial Soviet fighter jet

The first time he throttled the MiG‑21 to full power, soaring 20km above the Earth at twice the speed of sound, the young fighter pilot felt utterly weightless, as if the sky itself had let him go.

“At Mach 2 you can feel the lightness in the stomach. The MiG‑21’s turns at that speed are vast – banking sharply can carry you over many kilometres before completing a full arc,” recalls Air Marshal (retired) Prithvi Singh Brar. He joined the Air Force in 1960, switched to the Soviet jet in 1966, and flew it for the next 26 years.

“I loved flying the MiG-21 the way a bird loves the sky. In combat it protected me – when the hawk comes for the bird, the clever bird gets away. That’s what the MiG-21 was for me,” he told me.

After six decades of admiration – and later, infamy – India’s most iconic warplane is finally taking its last flight on Friday. At its peak, the MiG‑21 was the backbone of the Indian Air Force (IAF), making up two-thirds of its fighter fleet. It inspired fierce loyalty among its pilots, yet also acquired the grim nickname “flying coffin” after a series of deadly crashes in its twilight years.

According to official figures, between 1966 and 1980, India procured 872 MiG aircraft of various models.

Between 1971‑72 and April 2012, 482 MiG crashes were recorded, claiming 171 pilots, 39 civilians, eight service personnel and one aircrew, “caused by both human error and technical defects”. There is no official update of the data since.

“The MiG-21 has a chequered legacy. The fighter was the mainstay of the IAF for over three decades and served in various roles in all of India’s conflicts since the 1965 Pakistan war,” says Rahul Bhatia, an analyst at Eurasia Group, a geopolitical risk consulting firm. “However, starting in the early 2000s, the fighter became better known for its high crash rate. Pilots look back at the MiG-21 fondly, but the aircraft stayed in service far longer than it should have,” he adds.

Designed by the Soviets and first inducted in 1963, the needle-nosed MiG-21 was razor-slim, blisteringly fast at altitude and could climb with ferocious speed. At its peak, the jet flew with more than 50 air forces – from the Soviet Union, China and India to Egypt, Iraq and Vietnam – making it one of the most widely operated supersonic jets in history.

In India, where the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) began license-building it in the mid-1960s, the MiG-21 became the cornerstone of IAF squadrons, prized for its versatility across multiple combat roles.

Inside the MiG‑21 cockpit, pilots say, there was little comfort – just a single seat and the sky pressing in all around.

The air-conditioning – built for Russian winters – was barely adequate in scorching Indian summers. At low levels, cockpits often turned stifling and pilots could lose a kilo or more of body weight during a single sortie, remembers Air Marshal (retired) Vinod K Bhatia.

“Most of the sorties I flew were around 30 minutes long, so the discomfort was bearable. In the end, however, it was all part of the game and still enjoyable,” he told me.

Originally a high-altitude interceptor built for speed and short-range climbs to reach the enemy over short distances, the MiG‑21 was quickly adapted by the IAF for close combat and ground attacks.

By the 1971 war with Pakistan, it had become a formidable multi-role fighter, though in 1965 war it was still new and mainly an interceptor. The MiG‑21 also shaped India’s defence ties with Russia and helped jump-start its own aerospace industry.

“We adapted the aircraft to Indian conditions in a remarkable way. Though it had design limitations and wasn’t built for close combat, we pushed it beyond what Russian test pilots and manuals taught, mastering close combat flying in a truly impressive manner,” says Air Marshal Brar.

That adaptability came to define its role in the 1971 war. MiG-21s carried out low-level night strikes deep into Pakistani territory. A MiG-21 formation struck the governor’s house in Dhaka, blasting rockets through its roof ventilators.

“Each aircraft carried two 500kg bombs, and I flew three-to-four such missions. Taking off from Amritsar, we were insidePakistan within 35 minutes, struck our targets 250km deep and raced back through Rajasthan – the shortest way out,” says Air Marshal Brar.

Every fighter jet has its quirks and the MiG‑21 was no exception – fast descents and even high-speed stalls were part of its character, according to Air Marshal Bhatia. “Master it, respect it and it was a beautiful airplane to fly,” he says.

For the pilots who flew it, the MiG‑21’s tarnished reputation in later years is undeserved. “The media was very unkind to the aircraft,” said one.

Defence analyst Rahul Bedi says there’s a lot of “misplaced nostalgia around MiG-21 because it was responsible for so many deaths”. Many attribute frequent crashes to ageing airframes and stretched maintenance cycles.

“MiG‑21’s biggest challenge was its engine and high landing speed, which made descents tricky on short runways and contributed to many accidents – often blamed on pilot error. Attempts to retire the fighters were repeatedly stalled by inefficiency and bureaucratic inertia,” says Mr Bedi.

The air force had to keep extending the MiG-21’s service life as replacements were not available. The light combat aircraft meant to replace it was conceived of in 1981, first flew in 2001 and, even now, decades later, only two squadrons are operational.

With its last two MiG-21 squadrons retired, India will now have 29 fighter units against a sanctioned 42. Yet, for the pilots who flew it, the MiG‑21 was never just a machine – it was a partner in the sky.

Air Marshal Brar felt that bond first-hand, flying his last sortie out of the northern city of Chandigarh just two days before his retirement in July 2000.

“I was in the sky once more, like a bird taking flight for the last time. When I landed and stepped out of the cockpit, I felt completely content.”

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