A senior Indian Air Force (IAF) officer lost his life after his fighter jet MiG-21 Bison met with an accident on Wednesday. To ascertain the cause of the accident, a court of inquiry has been constituted. 
The accident happened when the aircraft was taking off for a combat training mission at an airbase in central India, an IAF spokesperson said and added Gupta had no time to eject and died in the crash. "IAF lost Group Captain A. Gupta in the accident," he said.

A TV grab shows the crashed MiG plane.

The MiG-21 Bison is a single-engine, single-seater multirole fighter/ground attack aircraft of Russian origin that forms the backbone of the Indian Air Force. It has a max speed of 2230 km/h (Mach 2.1) and carries one 23mm twin-barrel cannon with four R-60 close combat missiles.

More than 285 pilots of the Indian Air Force have lost their lives over the past six decades in crashes involving various aircraft, as per data provided by the Indian Defence Ministry.

There have been several accidents involving MiG-21 aircraft in India. Two months ago, a MiG-21 Bison jet crashed in Rajasthan state while landing, although the pilot survived the incident.