Indian Mig-21 nosedives into bank. 6 dead.

WARPLANE CRASHES INTO BANK

AN Indian air force jet crashed into a bank building in northwestern India on Friday, starting a fire that killed at least six people and injured 20.

The Soviet-made MiG-21 nosedived into the two-storey building in the Basti Adda neighbourhood of Jullundur, a witness told The Associated Press. The bank building, an adjacent plywood warehouse and a commercial building containing shops caught fire.

“I saw the fighter jet roll over a couple of times before it hurtled down,” said Sunil Malhotra, a software programmer who was standing on the balcony of his house. “I saw a blast in the sky and within 20 seconds, the plane fell. I saw the pilot and co-pilot parachuting down.”

The rear portion of the plane burned up, he said, and the front crashed into the bank building, with parts hitting other buildings.

The pilot, S.P. Naik, and the co-pilot bailed out and parachuted to safety. They were hospitalized, but the extent of their injuries was not immediately released.

Eighteen of the 20 injured were in critical condition, said Dr. Surinder Kaur, medical superintendent at the government hospital in Jullundur. She said six people were killed instantly, adding that she was mistaken when she earlier reported eight dead.

There was no immediate word on the crash’s cause, but the air force grounded all MiG-21s used for training to conduct mechanical checks. Patrol flights were not suspended.

Malhotra and other witnesses reported that fire engines were delayed or had trouble getting water when they arrived. He said one fire truck broke down as it neared the site and bystanders had to push it.

The fire raged for more than three hours after the crash. Army fire trucks arrived to help the ill-equipped civilian force.

The fighter jet had taken off from the nearby Adampur air force base and was on a routine flight when it crashed, said P.K. Bandhopadhyaya, the Defense Ministry’s spokesman in New Delhi.

The building it hit houses shops and a branch of the Bank of Rajasthan.

Jullundur lies 45 miles southwest of Amritsar in Punjab state. The town is 60 miles from the Pakistani border, where hundreds of thousands of Indian and Pakistani armed forces have been deployed because of recent friction between the countries. Patrol flights by India’s aging MiG-21s occur daily.

India’s fleet is prone to crashes. In the past six years, the government has reported more than 100 crashes that killed 50 pilots.

“Training on MiG-21s is being suspended … to check out the aircraft,” an air force spokesman, Squadron Leader R.K. Dhingra, said in New Delhi after the crash.