President Josipović visits Croatian Air Force and Air Defence

The President visited the Fighter Aircraft Squadron, where he was familiarised with the developments in the overhaul of the MIGs-21, and later also the Croatian Air Force and Air Defence air guard pair on duty. The Commander of the Croatian Air Force and Air Defence, Major General Dražen Ščuri, delivered a presentation on the situation and the resources of the Croatian Air Force and Air Defence for the visitors and the media representatives.
President Josipović emphasised that the visit demonstrated that Croatia had sufficient, yet obsolete, material resources at its disposal to perform the requested tasks and to provide air space protection into the year 2024. 
The President also pledged to do everything in his power to enable Croatia retain the Air Force capability, preferably one of its own, or jointly with a NATO partner. He announced a session of the Croatian Parliament’s Defence Committee the following week, featuring the preliminary results of the investigation on the recent MIG 21 crash near Donja Lomnica. “I suggest we wait for the results of the investigation, which will show whether the crash was due to technical or human fault or unpredictable course of events; neither of them is excluded”. 
The Defence Minister also stated that the causes of the crash would be made public immediately upon the completion of the investigation report and said that he as member of the Government insisted on and managed, despite unfavourable conditions, to allocate the resources from the state budget to the modernisation and extended life-cycle of the Fighter Aircraft Squadron“.
Croatia has so far received nine overhauled MIGs, of which five have been put in service; the tenth is due by mid-September, and the rest of the aircraft by the end of the year respectively .The overall cost of overhaul and modernisation is cca 120 million HRK (15,721,372 EUR).
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