The Indian Air Force on Tuesday phased out one of its three remaining squadrons of the ageing fleet of Russian- origin MiG-21 fighter jets to be replaced with the indigenous light combat aircraft (LCA) Mk-IA aircraft.

Sources said the MiG-21—India’s longest-serving fighter jet will be entirely retired by 2025 and will be replaced by Mk-IA aircraft, which the IAF will start procuring from February.

Each squadron has 16 to 19 fighter planes.

With this, the two MiG-21 squadrons still remain in operation and are currently based at Bikaner and Suratgarh in Rajasthan.

An IAF official said the MiG-21 was inducted into the IAF in the early 1960s and since then 800 variants of the supersonic fighter jets were inducted into service and remained the frontline fighter jet of the force for a long time.

A MiG-21 was in the news on February 27, 2019 after it was shot down by the Pakistani army in an aerial engagement a day after the IAF carried out airstrikes in Pakistan’s Balakot. Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman who was flying the jet ejected safely and his parachute drifted into POJ&K where he was taken into custody by the Pakistan Army. He was later released.

A former lieutenant-general welcomed the IAF’s decision to phase out the Russian-origin fighter jets, which had been haunting the IAF for years due to its abysmal record in flight safety. Owing to its notorious history of accidents, the MiG-21 came to be called “the flying coffin” or “widow-maker”.