IAF jet crash an outlier to Tejas LCA's impeccable safety record

Jaipur/New Delhi: Twenty three years after it took to the skies, the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) met with its first accident when a home-grown fighter jet crashed at Jaisalmer during an operational training sortie, but fortunately the pilot ejected safely.

“One Tejas aircraft of the Indian Air Force met with an accident at Jaisalmer, today during an operational training sortie. The pilot ejected safely. A Court of Inquiry has been constituted to find out the cause of the accident,” an IAF spokesperson said.

Minutes before it went down, the aircraft participated in a formation flying with another Tejas LCA for a tri-service exercise named Bharat Shakti being watched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other dignitaries.

The fighter jet crash-landed on a hostel run by the Bhil community, about two km from Jaisalmer. Fortunately, there was no one at the hostel at the time of the crash. The accident site is about 100 km away from the range where the exercise was taking place.

While military aviation is inherently risky, the veterans pointed out that the indigenous combat jet went from prototype to series production without a single hull loss, reflecting its excellent safety record.

In fact, Prime Minister Modi had become the first Indian Prime Minister to complete a 30-minute sortie on a Tejas LCA in November last year.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi takes a sortie on the Tejas, in Bengaluru, Saturday, Nov 25, 2023.

In his post-flight comment the Prime Minister had stated, “The experience was incredibly enriching, significantly bolstering my confidence in our country’s indigenous capabilities and leaving me with a renewed sense of pride and optimism about our national potential.”

In the coming years, the medium multi-role fighter jet will become the mainstay of the IAF, which has ordered 180 of them (LCA-Mk1) in two batches from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited at a cost of about 112,000 crore. The state-owned aviation major is likely to handover the first LCA-Mk1 to the IAF within a few weeks.

Earlier, HAL had delivered 32 Tejas LCA in IOC (initial operational clearance) and FOC (final operational clearance) configurations along with eight trainers. Two IAF units – 45 Squadron (Flying Daggers) and 18 Squadron (Flying Bullets) – have flown thousands of sorties with those aircraft.

The Tejas LCA Mk-1 will be a vast improvement from the first generation platforms with 40 plus improvements from the FOC version including digital radar warning receivers, external self protection jammers and better maintainability.