India will stop operating all of its Soviet era MiG-21 supersonic fighters by 2025.

This news was reported by the Times of India.

Sources in the country’s military circles said that four existing squadrons of obsolete single-engine MiG-21s experience high accident rates and will be decommissioned by the Indian Air Force in three years.

A senior Defense Ministry official declined to confirm or deny the report, telling Reuters that discussions on the future of the MiG-21 are still ongoing due to increasing difficulty of sourcing spare parts from Russia since its full-scale invasion in Ukraine.

Such a decision is overdue after the death of two officers in an accident that occurred in Rajasthan on July 28.

The pilots died flying a trainer modification of the MiG-21 fighter.

The disaster was the sixth in a row since January last year, with five disasters in 2021 and one in 2022. Five Indian pilots died in these crashes.

There are currently four squadrons of MiG-21 fighters in service with the Indian Air Force, each consisting of 16 to 18 aircraft, including two trainer versions.

One of the squadrons will be decommissioned on 30 September this year.

MiG-21 fighters entered service with IAF in 1963 and for decades formed the basis of its combat aviation.

Due to numerous accidents over the past few years, obsolete aircraft in India have come to be referred to as “flying coffins” due to their poor flight safety.

Indian media have previously stressed that this type of fighter has killed more than 350 Indian military pilots since it was adopted. Nearly half of India’s Air Force MiG-21 fleet of more than 800 aircraft was destroyed in peacetime accidents, according to open data.