They said Fernandes invited Kavita Gadgil, the gutsy mother of a killed pilot who is campaigning for a safety upgrade of the air force's ageing MiG-21s, to discuss a petition she handed to President Abdul Kalam on Tuesday, a defence ministry official said.

"The minister who recently met Gadgil has written to her to come and meet him to discuss her grievances," the official said.

Fernandes is under fire from various quarters for not acting to end the frequent crashes among the fleet of MiGs, the mainstay of the Indian Air Force.

On Tuesday Gadgil, whose son was killed in a MiG crash in 2001, urged Kalam, the supreme commander of India's armed forces, to modernise the MiG fleet before the aircraft, nickednamed "flying coffins," earn an even bloodier reputation.

Gadgil led others like her to the presidential palace and urged Kalam to inject new safety measures into the Russian-made fighter jets.

She has set up an air-safety foundation in the name of her dead son, Abhijit, to intensify the campaign.

Official figures show at least 273 MiGs, worth tens of millions of dollars, were lost in crashes between 1991 and 2003, killing more than 100 pilots.

Fernandes earlier this month accepted a dare and flew in a MiG-21 to dispel doubts about their airworthiness but Gadgil dubbed the event a "political stunt".

President Kalam, who is the architect of India's ballistic missile programme, headed a committee that probed air accidents involving military aircraft in the late 1990s.

His 1998 report recommended sweeping reforms, including demands for the immediate induction of advanced jet trainers to help new pilots graduate from slower planes to supersonic jets and the acquisition of "flight simulators" to upgrade training.

The panel had also called for an improvement in training standards of ground engineers and urged all agencies involved to ensure the acquisition of reliable spare parts for the aircraft.

Five years on, however, many of the recommendations are yet to be implemented.

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