MiG-31 fleet grounded

The entire Russian fleet of 80 MiG-31 Foxhounds is grounded after the December 14th crash of an aircraft on a post modernization flight. This is the second crash of a MiG-31 after being modernized. The first happened in Kazakhstan, killing one crew member, four months after the aircraft had been modernized. This flight occurred near Vladivostok, and reports say that the aircraft lost an engine during the flight. Both crew members got out this time.

The fleet is undergoing modernization to improve their radar, fire control system, and avionics. It brings the aircraft up to the BM standard.

On Dec. 14, a Russian Air Force MiG-31 Foxhound, possibly involved in a post-modernization test flight.crashed near Vladivostok on Dec. 14.

According to the Russian MoD, one of the engines failed but, until the exact reason of the failure will be found, all the 80 MiG-31 Foxhounds currently serving in the Russian Air Force were grounded.

Fortunately, both pilots survived and even managed to direct the plane towards an uninhabited area before ejecting.

theaviationist.com...

Fantastic aircraft and not good to hear about post upgrade crashes... Were the fleet grounded after the first incident or did they just keep flying hoping that once was a fluke? I could check but that second line seemed less antagonistic than my my usual ideas!

For reference ( when i checked last week) they have a active/operational fleet of less than 100 but there are actually 250 frames still 'in service'.... Since it's so hard to know what ' in (RF) service' means for us common folk perhaps you have some information that can indicate what that means for this near, imo, strategic Russian assets...

Stellar

Kazakhstan did temporarily ground their aircraft after the crash occurred, but resumed flying them shortly after.

It's being reported that the crew shut the engine down, in accordance with the flight plan, and they lost electrical power when they did. They tried to restart the engine, and the electrical problems intensified. They began having flight control issues as a result, but were able to point the aircraft to an empty area, and eject safely.

As for the "in service" question, there are a number of aircraft in the US that fall into that category. They're no good for anything but placeholders in the inventory, and won't ever fly again, but they occasionally start the engines and in some cases taxi them around. It's a numbers thing (the USAF is required by Congress to have a set number of aircraft in service).