Two Croatian Fishbeds collide in Mid-Air

[nscode]

It doesn't matter. If you loose contact with an airliner, you HAVE TO intercept it, according to international regulations..

[Renato71]

I beleive the peace time standby is 6, not 60 minutes. Maybe just a typo.

 

 

Anyway, a report was issued by Military Accident Commision.Click here for some pics (text is in Croatian), and an official video.

At 8:55 into the video you can hear someone yelling over the radio "Iskači! Iskači" (Eject! Eject!)

 

Here is the most interesting part:

(unofficial translation)

 

"(...)

Commission report determined that accident and crash of two military aircraft MiG-21 was a result of collision, where one aircraft with its upper left part of intake struck into another aircraft at the point of left underwing pylons.

Collision happened while performing a combat turn, at the moment when aircraft 120 caught up with aircraft 108, due to its higher airspeed of the previous, which was caused by higher engine setting and maneuver execution during post attack egress.

As a result of forces induced during a collision, canopy separated from aircraft 108, and on aircraft 120 a launcher UB-16-57 and bomb VAB-250 were torn off from underneath its left wing, while from underneath right wing a separation occurred of VAB-250 and uncontrolled launch of seven BR-2-57 rockets.

Contributing condition to the accident was cloud base, that did not comply with determined meteorological minimums, thus making harder to spot ground targets during the approach and had an influence on deviation from norms on combat maneuvers.

Furthermore, lack of pilot training due to low number of flying hours and exercises that had to be done prior to live ordnance training with air-to-ground rockets and bombs, flight preparation, and main training organization, did not secure all conditions for unimpeded task performance.

As a direct accident causes, incorrect judgment of weather conditions over exercise ground (base cloud and visibility) by ground controller and flight leader pilot, and non-practice of elaborated flight elements during attack ingress and egress by flight leader and his wingman were named.

(...)"

 

UB-16-57 - launcher with 16x unguided 57 mm rockets

VAB-250 - practice bomb

[Vekkinho]

No 60 minutes is an hour...

 

Anyway, the most important thing here is lack of armed training flights.

 

If you just look at the reports or photos of any US or western Europe fighter training of free flight you'll notice it's usually armed with at least IR missiles. Most Russian and unfortunately Croatian fighters of Russian origin barely see any weapons (beside from gun ammo) during their lifespan.