Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
A pilot has died in a plane crash during a demonstration in Dubai air Show.
An Indian domestically-made Tejas fighter jet crashed at the Dubai Air Show on Friday during an air display, killing its pilot, the Indian Air Force said.
The fighter was flying at low altitude before going down in a ball of fire around 2:15 pm (1015 GMT), according to an eyewitness.
Footage from the scene showed black smoke rising behind the fenced airstrip.
“A court of inquiry is being constituted to determine the cause of the accident,” the Air Force said in a statement.
It was the second known crash of the single-engine 4.5-generation fighter jet, which is built by state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and powered by General Electric engines. The first accident occurred during an exercise in India in 2024.
The domestic jet, whose name means “brilliant” in Sanskrit, is seen as crucial to India’s efforts to modernize its air force fleet of primarily Russian and ex-Soviet fighter aircraft.
The crash occurred during the last day of the air show, the Middle East’s largest aviation event, which began on Monday. Flights resumed later on Friday, with jets back in the skies above the show venue, witnesses said.
“A court of inquiry is being constituted to determine the cause of the accident,” the Indian Air Force said in a statement. It confirmed that the sole pilot had been killed.
The UAE Aviation Authority was not immediately available to comment on whether it would lead a local investigation. The Indian Embassy said it is in touch with UAE authorities. Experts stressed that it was too early to say what caused the accident.
GE said in a statement that it stood ready to support the investigation.
Dubai’s government said emergency teams were managing the situation on the spot.
First manufactured in 2001, but according to studies conducted two decades earlier, the Tejas was designed as a light combat jet to replace India’s Russian MiG-21 fleet.
The Indian Air Force is expected to operate a fleet of around 220 Tejas fighter aircraft and its upgraded Mk-1A variants over the next decade after completion of the pending order by HAL.
The rollout of the fighter plane has been delayed due to slow deliveries of engines from GE, which it has attributed to supply chain issues following COVID-19.
“This is the first completely indigenous Indian fighter aircraft that is not based on foreign designs,” said Francis Tusa, a British-based defense analyst. He said that till now the export interest was limited. “Work on Tejas Mark II is going on,” he said.
India was seeing interest from potential foreign buyers at the week-long air show, which is a key arena for the global arms and airliner markets and is famous for bold displays using sweeping scenarios of airspace.
Friday’s crash was the first on record at the world’s third-largest air show, after Paris and Britain’s Farnborough. Airshow accidents were common in the 1970s, but have become rare at top aerospace events in recent decades as safety restrictions have tightened.
In 1999, a Sukhoi Su-30 crashed after touching the ground during similar maneuvers at the Paris Airshow, and a decade earlier a MiG-29 had crashed in the same incident. All the crew was evacuated safely.
In 2019, Britain halted aerobatic displays during public days at the Farnborough Airshow after a vintage Hawker Hunter crashed at a small show on Britain’s south coast in 2015.