MiG-23 Flogger crash near Arad

In june 1999 a Romanian unupdated MiG-23 Flogger crashed due to engine problems near the city of Arad. The Romanian Air Force has some MiG-23s in their air bases but all these aircraft are old and sometimes even a danger to the pilots that fly them. There are many programs to update the fighters in the Romanian Air Force and some of them are really impressive, but unfortunately the romanian government decided to spend those money on something else, like very expensive government parties and useless trips abroad on taxpayers' money. Romania bought MiG fighters especially during the 1970s, when the biggest romanian fighter aircraft aquisition program was going on, but they bought mostly MiG-21 Fishbeds, and then decided to pass-on to some MiG-23 Floggers, but in smaller nombers. In this incident the pilot was killed. His last words were "Confirm", the Romanian equivalent of Roger. The problem was that the engine had suddently stopped working, but the pilot did not ejected but tried to restart it when he crashed. This technique is very frequently found among the Romanian fighter pilots which only eject in the very last moment or not at all. Romania is a poor country, so it doesn't has the money to operate the current fighters, what about buying new ones, therefore Romanian fighter pilots know that when a MiG goes down, they will have even less aircraft. And they care for their aircraft, even if they're as old and inoperative as they are. Maybe too much. However, since june 1999, Romania's fighter pilots are now less than they were in 1998 : less with 1.

© 1999 Sorin A Crâsmarelu
August 27, 1999