Air Chief admits flaws in MiG-21
	New Delhi: It was a record which was perhaps too good to be true. The Indian Air Force on Thursday suffered its first MiG-21 crash in a year near Darjeeling. The pilot, Squadron Leader Pandey, was killed in the mishap, which has marred what could have been the first crashless year for the MiG-21 in four decades. And for the first time, the outgoing Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi, has admitted limits to improving the safety record of the MiG-21. He acknowledged design flaws in this ageing fighter as the limiting factor, but at the same time he sought to play down the problem. "If you say there were design deficiency in the MiG, there are design deficiencies in other aircraft as well. Was it correct have flown them? My dear, we won a war with the MiG-21," Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi, Chief of Air Staff, says. Air Tyagi terms the 'Flying Coffin' label, which has dogged the MiG-21 for long, as unfair. "To call it a flying coffin, I think, is a great national disservice. " But then should the sharp decline in the crash rate of the MiG-21 be a consolation to mothers and widows of pilots killed in crashes? "She understands that there are risks involved in military aviation. Sometimes things don't work out. I am sorry that she has lost her kid," Tyagi regrets. Yet, it's not an aircraft we can abandon in the near term. Tyagi insists that the MiG-21 has been worthwhile despite all the agony it has caused. There is no option, perhaps, but to be optimistic when one knows that it will continue to fly in Indian skies for another 10 years.