Mirage 2000 Crashes Surprising And Alarming

What�s going on with the Mirage fighters of the Indian AF? They seem to be crashing one after another. They don�t know why they crash yet, but they are investigating the cause. A report is expected next week which will then be studied by experts from the French manufacturers.

From: Mirage 2000 crashes surprising and alarming

Giving details of the last night's crash of the Mirage fighter near the Gwalior Airbase, Air Marshal S K Malik, Vice Chief of the Air Staff said preliminary reports indicated that the pilot could have orientation problems leading to the crash.

The Vice Chief said premlinary reports of earlier two crashes last month - one near Gwalior and other during air show at Mauritius - had indicated technical problems, so some of the components like blades had been sent for examination to the National Metallurgical Labortary in Jamshedpur.

The Vice Chief said the recent crashes were surprising as the Mirage of all fighters in the inventory of IAF had the cleanest safety record, with only six aircraft involved in accidents since their induction in 1987.

Some technical or human error? Could sabotage be the causing these crashes? I guess we�ll know more after the french experts have spoken. It could also be a coincident that they have crashed so frequently recently.

I blame it on France.. A country like France should not be counted on to produce reliable war-machines.

Just look at the rest of the garbage that country produces.

As above, French military technology is generally a load of crap anyway. They bought junk so what do you expect? Just look at France's performance in Wars; They are not a fighting nation.

This has very little to do with the Mirage 2000: in fact it is a very brilliant machine, the only true alternative to the F16 on the market (excluding the Russian products). Other users of the Dassault-designed airplane (France, Greece, Taiwan, etc) didn't report any problem at all: in fact the Mirage 2000 is seen as reliable as the F16 by both the Greeks and the Taiwanese (both of which also fly F16s). The real problem lies in the enormous faults inside the Indian Air Force: the last five years were a complete nightmare, with a huge number of vehicles lost during training or routine activity. This prompted an inquiry which found a number of faults:
1)Very poor pilot training. This has always been a problem since India left the Commonwealth and lost access to the various joint training programs. Moreover the strict neutrality policy of the Indian government negated the benefits of having experienced foreign pilots training the local air forces. Moreover, India lacks an up-to-date trainer: this is being redressed by buying a huge number of BAE Hawk trainers on a crash program (the aircraft are being built in the UK and shipped directly to India, no license having been issued).
2)Poor maintenance. India aircraft fleet has been described as a "maintenance nightmare". There are Russian MIG21s, SU27s, MIG29s, French Mirage 2000s, British Jaguars, Canberras and Harriers , etc. No other air force in the world has so many radically different models in service. Imagine how easy it is to train technicians and supply enough spare parts for every model.
3)Local manufacturing processes. Most of the aircrafts employed have been assembled locally from foreign components, or built entirely in India. The inquiry put some blame on "quality control standards" and "poor workmanship". In short, most of these planes are litterally starting to fall apart due to inferior workmanship.
4)Low morale. The Indian Air Force has not a very glorious reputation; moreover most of the personnel feels abandoned by the goverment and forced to fly on dangerous machinery. This is being redressed by inviting squadrons from all over the world to be "beaten up" by the locals: the last ones to have such a privilege were members of a USAF units flying F15s. This is a questionable procedure but, at least, puts some heart into the local pilots.

nice... Since Taiwan got a lot of Mirages it will be easier to invade it

Originally posted by robertfenix
A country like France should not be counted on to produce reliable war-machines.

As it says in the article (even in the part I quoted) :
"...the Mirage of all fighters in the inventory of IAF had the cleanest safety record, with only six aircraft involved in accidents since their induction in 1987."...
I guess they should be reliable.

And thats why Poland bought f-16's instead mirages. French airforce ad bad quality aircraft even in WWII. And mirage is not better. In falklands argentinian mirages (proudly called FIGHTERS) had big problems with british harriers, that are slow VTOL attack aircraft.

Lets leave the immature French bashing at the door shall we.

Originally posted by Kakugo
This has very little to do with the Mirage 2000: in fact it is a very brilliant machine, the only true alternative to the F16 on the market (excluding the Russian products). Other users of the Dassault-designed airplane (France, Greece, Taiwan, etc) didn't report any problem at all: in fact the Mirage 2000 is seen as reliable as the F16 by both the Greeks and the Taiwanese (both of which also fly F16s). The real problem lies in the enormous faults inside the Indian Air Force: the last five years were a complete nightmare, with a huge number of vehicles lost during training or routine activity. This prompted an inquiry which found a number of faults:
1)Very poor pilot training. This has always been a problem since India left the Commonwealth and lost access to the various joint training programs. Moreover the strict neutrality policy of the Indian government negated the benefits of having experienced foreign pilots training the local air forces. Moreover, India lacks an up-to-date trainer: this is being redressed by buying a huge number of BAE Hawk trainers on a crash program (the aircraft are being built in the UK and shipped directly to India, no license having been issued).
2)Poor maintenance. India aircraft fleet has been described as a "maintenance nightmare". There are Russian MIG21s, SU27s, MIG29s, French Mirage 2000s, British Jaguars, Canberras and Harriers , etc. No other air force in the world has so many radically different models in service. Imagine how easy it is to train technicians and supply enough spare parts for every model.
3)Local manufacturing processes. Most of the aircrafts employed have been assembled locally from foreign components, or built entirely in India. The inquiry put some blame on "quality control standards" and "poor workmanship". In short, most of these planes are litterally starting to fall apart due to inferior workmanship.
4)Low morale. The Indian Air Force has not a very glorious reputation; moreover most of the personnel feels abandoned by the goverment and forced to fly on dangerous machinery. This is being redressed by inviting squadrons from all over the world to be "beaten up" by the locals: the last ones to have such a privilege were members of a USAF units flying F15s. This is a questionable procedure but, at least, puts some heart into the local pilots.

All the made above are valid opinions i agree, but I disagree with most. I wonder how long the Indians have had the Mirage 2000, and has it been for more time than the taiwanese etc. French experts themselves are in India investigating the reason for the crashes. Its been reported that the french themsleves are having problems with the versions of mirage that the Indians have. The Mirage 2005 is built for that very reason.
The aircraft is definitely acting up.

As far as I know India is still in the common wealth. Pilots regularly go to the UK to train. Infat it is a shoclarship of sorts for the cream of the batch. The staff college here in India likewise has RAF pilots doing courses.

The morale in the IAF , well I can only speak for what I see. The pilots are very confident, and professional. The Cope India exercise was not i repeat NOT "staged" to lift morale. Unfortunately some americans here on the forum just cant deal with that kind of publicity. Also exercises conducted with the South african and Singapore airforce enede in the IAFs favor. Singapore came to India as they are keen to train on inddian soil. They do not have space to do so in Singapore. the exercises with south africa were in south africa.
So nobody's bringing AFs home to get beat by the 'locals'.
IMHO the IAF is one of the mostly highly trained AFs in the world, and the best in Asia.

Having said this, there is a problem with the quality of maintenance being carried out by technicians is spurious. HAL has ben blamed for major botch-ups whihc have not resulted in accidents due to double checking.

Also the inavailibility of trainer jets whihc allow the smooth transition from transonic aircraft to supersonic ones have been the reasons for MiG-21 crashes invloving pilot error. Hence the puchase of the AJTs w/o licensing,HAL is under review for its manufacture and maintenance abilities.Also the need for these AJTs to fill the sub-supersonic gap is somewhat urgent.

In terms of morale, the IAF squadron members are a family, and obviously the loss of a fellow pilot or in 1 case a Sqdrn. Ldr. has been a severe blow for morale amongst the fighter pilot community.Its like losing a family member.
I can safely vouch for the confidence of the pilots in their machines though , Ive spoken to many on several occasions. If at all morale is low,it is as a result of thsese recent accidents, and is not a cause for the same.

Also IMHO India is finally having to deal with the lack of techies staying back in the country and working in the concerned institutions. The "brain drain" towards the western countries is resulting in a less competent engineering workforce at home.
(>25% of NASA is of Indian origin) etc. etc.
This is a subject that needs to be addressed by the government. WE need to convince the brights ones into staying at home and working in tech industry back here. That will definitely IMHO eliminate the "maintenance and manufacturing incompetency" factor playing into the fighter crashes.

And for future reference, Kakugo was the quoted section below pure speculation/deductive logic on your part along with all your other points or have you researched some reports stating this ...?

Originally posted by Kakugo
4)Low morale. The Indian Air Force has not a very glorious reputation; moreover most of the personnel feels abandoned by the goverment and forced to fly on dangerous machinery. This is being redressed by inviting squadrons from all over the world to be "beaten up" by the locals: the last ones to have such a privilege were members of a USAF units flying F15s. This is a questionable procedure but, at least, puts some heart into the local pilots.

Kano name two high quality French made anything's. And I will retract my statement about stuff manufactured in France being just garbage.

^^ This might sound a little sarcastic but IMHO the Mirage 2000 is a good fighter!!



Also the Rafale is pretty okay IMHO

Originally posted by Adam_S
In falklands argentinian mirages (proudly called FIGHTERS) had big problems with british harriers, that are slow VTOL attack aircraft.

They had problems because the Harrier is a very good little aircraft. It also helped that they had the very best trained pilots in the world flying them.

They could perform manoeuvres that had never been done before in combat such as VIFFING (vectoring in foward flight).

[edit on 11/11/04 by Hyperen]

Originally posted by Hyperen

They had problems because the Harrier is a very good little aircraft. It also helped that they had the very best trained pilots in the world flying them.

They could perform manoeuvres that had never been done before in combat such as VIFFING (vectoring in foward flight).

[edit on 11/11/04 by Hyperen]

Argentinians had Mirage 2000s in the falklands war?!!!

India Has both Harriers and Mirage 2000 and we seem to think that the Mirage 2000 is way better than the harrier in terms of a2a at least...
Until the Su-30s were obtained, the IAFs primary nuke delivery platform was the mirage 2000.

I would put my money on some technical problem rather then pilot error. They have some real good pilots in India. But I guess you cant rule out pilot error until all the facts are in.

Perhaps they just got a bad batch of Mirages or something. I bet its some stupid 10 cent part like a o-ring or something.

Originally posted by robertfenix
Kano name two high quality French made anything's. And I will retract my statement about stuff manufactured in France being just garbage.

- This is a ridiculous comment but just to rebutt this stupidity.....

Most modern French cars are excellent.

French TGV trains lead the world in train tech.

There's 2....retracting anything yet?

Thompson French electronics either military or domestic as good as anyones.

fine French Champagne.

fine French wines.

French Voxan Motorcycles (very stylish, very nice).

If we count Airbus as in large part French that would be the best civil aircraft in the world.

Dassault make excellent military aircraft - as their export record since they formed amply and undeniably demonstrates.

If we count ESA as in large part French that would be the most reliable cost-effective and best satellite launching business in the world.

The list goes on and on because the basic idea was as stupid as the comment about French war history was wrong.

I don't imagine there were too many idiotic purile jibes about 'French surrender monkeys' in Napoleon's day, do you?



[edit on 12-11-2004 by sminkeypinkey]

Ive been hearing on over a dozen websites at the moment and for sum time now that India has been experiencing an amazing influx of UFO's and unexplainable light in the skies, much the same as Ameica has done since the early 30's and 40's......im not saying these planes are being shot down by these as yet unidentified objects or lights, but they are ariel vehicles of great sensitivity.....for all we know the CME's and solar flares as well as these other sighting could have something to do with the crashes. I have 2 friends who fly for the British RAF, and Ive asked if they know anything about the Mirage. They have never flown them, but have agreat deal of knowledge and raw data on how to defend or attack one, and from what they say, it would take a monumental act of carelessness/stupidity or lack of training that would crash one of these very reliable and tough combat vehicles. Just my 5cents

Originally posted by Daedalus3
India Has both Harriers and Mirage 2000 and we seem to think that the Mirage 2000 is way better than the harrier in terms of a2a at least...
Until the Su-30s were obtained, the IAFs primary nuke delivery platform was the mirage 2000.

I think Adam_S was impying that the Mirage was a bad aircraft since the ones the Argentinians flew in the Falklands conflict didn't perform too well against

Originally posted by Adam_S
slow VTOL attack aircraft

I was just saying that Mirages may not necessarily be bad aircraft just because they got their arses kicked by Harriers; there were probably many factors that led to this and one of these factors was that the Argentinian Mirages were flying against very well trained pilots of a Western airforce who happened to be flying very modern, manoeuvrable jets even if they were "slow VTOL attack aircraft" armed with only short range air to air missiles.




[edit on 12/11/04 by Hyperen]

Mirage 2000s can deliver nuke strikes???

Originally posted by COWlan
Mirage 2000s can deliver nuke strikes???

- Yes, they can.

Yes I agree that crashing a Mirage 2000 would take a lot of things to go wrong at the same time. According to my sources one crash was due to pilot error, that too utter stupidity. The jet was returning from SA and landed in Maruitius. The pilot, that too a sqdn ldr. forgot to extend the undercarriage. The majority of the impact was taken by the fuel pods, which due to the long flight (thank god for that!!) were empty. The aircraft was salvaged, repaired, prepped and is now back in India, on OP ready status.