Pilot killed in Tejas crash at Dubai show

An Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot, Wing Commander Namesh Syal, was killed in a Tejas Mark-1 fighter aircraft crash at the Dubai Air Show today.

This is the second crash involving the indigenous light combat aircraft (LCA) in the past 19 months. In March last year, a jet had crashed at a tri-services exercise near Jaisalmer, Rajasthan.

In today’s incident, the pilot was executing a “barrel roll”, a low-flying manoeuvre, when the aircraft plunged to the ground and erupted into a fireball. Reports said the pilot tried to stabilise the jet, but could not eject in time.

The IAF, in a statement, said: “The pilot sustained fatal injuries in the accident. The IAF deeply regrets the loss of life. A court of inquiry is being constituted to ascertain the cause of the accident.”

At air shows, jets perform aerobatic displays in front of spectators, with pilots often encountering ‘G-force’ of 6 to 7 on a scale of 10. ‘G-force’ is a measure of acceleration that is felt on the human body and is used as a benchmark to compare the effects of plane’s manoeuvres to the normal force of gravity on Earth.

The IAF will retrieve the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder to ascertain the cause of the crash. Sources said multiple reasons such as malfunction in the fly-by-wire system, control system or engine failure could be behind the crash.

The fighter jet built by state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is powered by an F-404 engine manufactured by US firm General Electric. The HAL had delivered 38 jets in the first tranche and included the one that crash today. Another 180 jets of upgraded variant Tejas Mark-1A are slated to be delivered.

The crash in front of an international audience comes as a setback as the Ministry of Defence has been pitching Tejas as an indigenous marquee project of its “Make in India” initiative. Tejas has been performing at foreign air shows over the past few years.

The first Tejas crash occurred on March 12, 2024, during a training sortie near Jaisalmer. The pilot ejected safely and preliminary investigations pointed to an engine seizure likely caused by an oil pump malfunction as the reason for the accident. Until today, this was the only crash in over 23 years of Tejas’ operational and testing history.