A Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) of the Indian Air Force crashed at Jaisalmer during an operational training sortie on March 12. This is the first crash of the indigenous jet since it first flew 23 years ago on January 4, 2001.
“The pilot ejected safely. A Court of Inquiry has been constituted to find out the cause of the accident,” the IAF said in a post on social media. The incident occurred as the tri-service fire power demonstration exercise Bharat Shakti was underway not far away which was witnessed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The IAF currently operates two LCA squadrons and is set to third squadron shortly. On November 25, 2023, Mr. Modi visited Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in Bengaluru and undertook a sortie on a twin-seater LCA.
On the overall project cost, the Government informed Parliament in March 2020 that ₹9,063.96 crore was spent on LCA and ₹2,032 crore on the now shelved Kaveri jet engine programme.
The Government had originally sanctioned ₹2,188.00 crore for Full Scale Engineering Development (FSED) — Phase-I programme to design and develop two Technology Demonstrators (Tds) in April 1993, and ₹5,777.56 crore for FSED — Phase-II Programme. The objectives of Phase-II are fabrication of three Prototypes Vehicles (PVs), establishment of production facility at HAL for production of eight aircraft per year and manufacturing and delivery of eight Limited Series Production (LSP) aircraft, the Government had informed the Parliament earlier. The maiden flight of the first Technology Demonstrator (TD1) took place on January 4, 2001 and was christened Tejas in 2003.
The LCA achieved Initial Operation Clearance (IOC) in December 2013 and Final Operational Clearance (FOC) in February 2019. The IAF had earlier signed two contracts with HAL, for 20 IOC configuration aircraft including four IOC trainers on March 31, 2006 and for 20 FOC configuration aircraft including four FOC trainers on December 23, 2010.
All through the development phase, the LCA maintained an accident free track record, an accomplishment among global flight development projects.
The first IOC fighter aircraft was delivered in 2016 and the first LCA squadron No. 45 “Flying Daggers” in the IAF was formed in July 2016 with two aircraft. The second LCA squadron N0. 18 ‘Flying Bullets’ was operationalised in May 2020. The ICO and FOC standard aircraft have all been delivered and delivery of trainers is underway.
Two decades later, in February 2021, the Defence Ministry signed a ₹48,000 crore deal with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to supply 83 Light Combat Aircraft (LCA)-Mk1A, which includes 73 LCA Tejas Mk-1A jets and 10 LCA Mk-1 trainer aircraft at the cost of ₹45,696 Crore along with design and development of infrastructure sanctions worth ₹1,202 Crore. Deliveries of M1A aircraft are scheduled to be delivered to IAF this month.
The MK-1A will have over 40 modifications over the MK1 variant including a new Electronic Warfare system, Advanced Electronically Scanning Array (AESA) radar, Beyond Visual Range (BVR) missiles and network warfare system including Software Defined Radio (SDR).
In December 2023, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) approved the procurement of 97 additional LCA Mk1A at an estimated cost of ₹67,000 crore. A larger and lore powerful LCA-MK2 is also under development.
