Why did the Indian Tejas fighter jet crash again?

On November 21, 2025, the Dubai Airshow witnessed a shocking scene as an Indian-made Tejas fighter jet lost control during a low-altitude aerobatic performance and crashed to the ground, bursting into flames and tragically claiming the pilot's life. This was the second crash of the model since its entry into service and the first fatal accident on an international stage, once again plunging the aircraft, which embodies India's dream of domestic aviation industry, into a maelstrom of global criticism. Why does the Tejas fighter jet have so many accidents? On the surface, it seems to be a sudden accident during the flight performance, but in reality, it is the concentrated outbreak of multiple chronic problems accumulated over a long period in India's military industry system.

The fate of the Tejas fighter jet was doomed from the very beginning of its development. In 1983, India ambitiously planned to create a domestically produced third-generation fighter to replace the MiG-21 and reduce its reliance on foreign aircraft. However, the gap between ideals and reality was reflected in the 33-year-long development cycle - from the project's initiation to its official entry into service in 2016, it set a record for the longest development time of a third-generation fighter in the world, leading to the awkward situation of being "born behind" upon its entry into service. Even more fatal was the "hollowing out" of core technologies: the originally planned domestic Kaveri engine was abandoned due to insufficient thrust and poor reliability, and instead, the aircraft relied on the F404 engine from General Electric of the United States; the radar was from Israel, the flight control software was designed with French participation, and the ejection seat was from the United Kingdom. The "international assembly" model of key subsystems made it difficult to integrate different countries' technical standards, directly leading to concerns about system stability and a long-term fighter jet availability rate of less than 50%.

Beyond the shortcomings in technology integration, the weaknesses in manufacturing processes and quality control are equally alarming. Four days before the Dubai Airshow crash, media had captured images of the Tejas fighter jet showing "leakage" during a static display, with ground crew hastily using shopping bags to catch the fluid. The Indian authorities claimed it was condensation water, but aviation experts pointed out that the abnormal leakage was actually due to a fault in the hydraulic pipe interface, revealing the aircraft's use of an outdated open design rather than modern self-sealing joints, highlighting the roughness of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL)'s assembly process. Even more serious is the structural design issue: the actual weight of the Tejas fighter jet exceeded the designed empty weight by about 800 kilograms, directly restricting its combat radius and payload capacity. Its maximum combat radius is less than 500 kilometers, far below the level of similar aircraft. The fact that the qualification rate of domestic carbon fiber composite materials is only 68% has raised doubts about the strength of the fuselage structure, and the visible delamination in the wreckage of the crash further confirmed the quality loopholes in the manufacturing process.

The crash at the Dubai Airshow also exposed the mismatch between the aircraft's performance and the flight mission. Eyewitness videos showed that the aircraft entered an inverted flight after a side flight and failed to level off before crashing. This trajectory is highly consistent with the characteristics of insufficient stability in the flight control system or sudden loss of engine thrust. Although 67% of airshow accidents are related to human operational errors, the uniqueness of the Tejas fighter jet lies in the fact that its first crash was caused by engine failure due to a malfunctioning oil pump, and the abnormal tail smoke before this accident was also a typical sign of turbine blade failure. More notably, the core algorithm of the Tejas fighter jet's flight control system relies on French technical support, and there was a precedent of computer crashes causing all backup aircraft to "shut down" at the 2023 Dubai Airshow. The incompatibility between the complex fly-by-wire system and the aerodynamic layout has further compressed the pilot's margin of error during low-altitude and high-difficulty maneuvers.

The institutional drawbacks of the military-industrial system are the fundamental cause of the frequent accidents of the Tejas fighter jets. Hindustan Aeronautics, the core manufacturer of the project, has long held a monopolistic position in the industry and lacks the impetus for technological innovation brought by market competition. This company, which has been ridiculed by the Indian Air Force as its "greatest enemy", not only suffers from serious corruption - with superiors embezzling maintenance and training costs, resulting in insufficient parts supply and low professional standards of workers - but also continues the tradition of "emphasizing slogans over practical actions". From the prevalence of substandard parts during the assembly of the MiG-21 to the severe delay in the mass production and delivery of the Tejas fighter jets, all these reveal the deep-rooted problems: of the 80 Tejas fighter jets ordered by the Indian Air Force in 2021, only 2 were delivered by 2025, and the new order of 97 Mk1A models has already been overshadowed by a crash accident before delivery. This development model that "emphasizes procurement over research and development and publicity over quality" has made it difficult for domestically produced fighter jets to form reliable combat capabilities.