Romania Indefinitely Suspends All MIG 21 LanceR Flights Following Recent Air Crashes

The Romanian Ministery of Defence has suspended all MIG-21 LanceR flights due to the significant number of plane crashes.

The decision was made following several accidents within Romanian aviation. Since the beginning of March, when a MIG-21 plane crashed, together with an IAR 330 helicopter and eight people died, many accidents occurred during military exercises, questioning the military equipment of the Romanian army.

According to the Ministry of Defence press release on April 15, the measure was taken given the significant incidence of aviation events and accidents during the operation of MiG-21 LanceR aircraft, resulting in multiple casualties and damaged or destroyed aircraft, to improve aviation safety and prevent aviation events and accidents. by reducing the risks associated with technical failures.

An explication for these incidents is that the Romanian Army’s MiG-21 LanceR aircraft are among the oldest, with several of them having been built over 40 years ago. Due to issues with the landing gear hatches in April, such an aircraft was forced to land in Constanța County of Romania. A plane crashed near Cogealac, also in Constanța County, on March 2.

Since the beginning of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and since NATO has strengthened its presence on Romanian territory, the Romanian Army seems more unprepared than ever to face military exercises, not to mention a military conflict. Recent incidents have tarnished the image of the Romanian army, highlighting the lack of training and disorganisation at the military level.

But that’s not all.

In order to resolve the issue, the Romanian Ministry of Defence is rushing the procurement process for the 32 F-16 fighter jets from Novegia, which will make up two more squadrons in the coming years. The bill to approve these purchases has gone through a legislative transparency phase. It is currently in the vetting process, intending to be presented to the Romanian Parliament in the shortest possible time.

The Minister of Defence’s solution to fix the old army aircraft is to replace them with EUR 454 million old Norwegian planes. So even though the government has a reasonably large amount of money to spend on old planes, the Romanian president proposed increasing the defence budget to 2.5% of GDP to spend it on second-hand military equipment.

Ironically or not, this is the military situation in Romania, the Eastern outpost of the NATO Alliance.