New Delhi: India’s indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas will be back in the skies from Wednesday after being grounded for nearly two months.
This will come as a big relief for the Indian Air Force (IAF) that suffers from a shortage of adequate squadrons of airworthy fighter jets to tackle challenges from the west as well as the north.
The Tejas fleet was grounded in early February this year after an aircraft experienced a technical issue while landing, as reported by News18.
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) CMD D K Sunil had underlined earlier that a technical issue flagged in the aircraft had been resolved. The entire fle
et will soon start flying, he had said.
“There was a technical issue, which has been discussed and committees are working on it. It was discussed in a local modification committee (LMC). Good news is that the LMC is done. So, we expect that by Wednesday the fleet will start flying,” he had said.
While a section of the media had reported a crash in February, HAL had called it “a minor technical issue on the ground”.
It is notable that the aircraft has logged over 50,000 safe flying hours prior to 2024. Thereafter, there have been three incidents that resulted in the death of a pilot.
While February’s incident is being called a “hard landing” during a training flight that caused serious damage to the aircraft and forced the pilot to eject, there was a crash due to an engine fuel-feed problem in 2024. The pilot had ejected safely.
The most tragic incident involving a Tejas was at the high-profile Dubai Air Show in November 2025. An aircraft performing an aerial display crashed resulted in the death of Wing Commander Namansh Syal.