The IAF, which is the world's fourth largest with 1,200 aircraft, relies mainly on nine variants of the single-engined MiG-21s, some of which date back to 1966.

Air Chief Marshal S. Krishnaswamy in a news conference rested his case for the Russian-designed interceptors, arguing the hours flown by the MiGs compared with the number of crashes did not merit the uncharitable tag the planes now have.

"Have a heart! The marriage market of our MiG pilots is coming down and we are angered by this," he said referring to charts and statistics which boasted the ageing jets were even safer than some wide-bodied commercial aircraft.

The reaction came just over a month after an IAF MiG-21 crashed and killed five people on the ground in northern Haryana state. The accident was the second MiG crash in four days and the eighth in the province in the past year.

"In the past 10 years MiGs have flown 553,000 sorties and there had been only 98 crashes involving 43 fatalities," Krishnaswamy said, adding that some 120 of his newest fleet of 200 MiGs have been upgraded to improve flight safety.

"Technical flaws caused no fatalities in the past five years except for in two cases," he said, adding the period saw 25 crashes due to human error and 18 more from faults in the supersonic jets which have fought in India's wars with Pakistan in 1965 and 1971.

The comments stressed the IAF's utter desperation for new trainer jets for its graduate rookie fliers who now pilot under-performing planes with landing speeds of about 140 kilometres (86 miles) an hour to the MiG's touchdown velocity of 340 kilometres (211 miles) an hour.

India has been dragging its feet since 1982 to buy 66 trainer jets worth 1.63 billion dollars and has shortlisted the Hawk AJT of British Aerospace and French Dassault's Alphajet trainer but is yet to finalise any deal.

The government, plagued by major defence scandals one after another since 1984, is wary of getting bogged down by more such allegations with provincial elections later this year and make-or-break national polls looming in 2004.

But the air chief marshal rejected suggestions of friction over advanced jet trainers between the IAF and the coalition government of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Krishnaswamy said his MiG-21s would continue to fly because the jets were the mainstay of the Indian military, which was "very close to war with Pakistan last year."

"Retiring aircraft is not simple and we are not convinced with arguments that resources are the only criteria," he said, adding the IAF warhorses have a life of up to 40 years while their engines had a shorter flying life.

"And in their lifetime each of these planes will consume two engines," Krishnaswamy said of the MiG-21s which are now being upgraded and manufactured under licence from Russia at two Indian aeronautical units.

Besides the MiGs', the IAF also have frontline aircraft such as Russian Sukhoi-30s, MiG-29s and French-built Mirage 2000s and is locally making British-designed Jaguar bomber jets.

The Soviet Union accounted for 70 percent of India's military hardware but since its breakup New Delhi has been forced to shop in Western arms bazaars.

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