Indian MiGs 'not poorly maintained'

A team of Russian aviation experts has ruled out poor maintenance as the reason for a spate of crashes of Russian-built MiG-21s used by the Indian air force.

The head of the government-run maintenance company in India, Hindustan Aeronautics, said the Russians were happy with its work.

He said one reason for the crashes could be the contamination of aviation fuel by sub-standard storage tanks.

There have been more than 30 crashes involving the main Indian jet, the Russian-made MiG-21 fighter, in the past year.

Over the past decade, 170 MiGs have been lost - almost all to pilot error.