The Indian Air Force’s TEJAS fleet is scheduled to return to operational status on 8 April 2026, following a two-month grounding triggered by a "rude landing" in February, wrote Anand Singh of India Today.

This latest incident, which resulted in the pilot ejecting and the aircraft being written off, marks the third significant mishap for the platform in less than two years.

Previous accidents include a 2024 crash caused by fuel feed issues and a tragic November 2025 crash at the Dubai Air Show that claimed the life of Wing Commander Namansh Syal.

Following the February accident, HAL Chairman DK Sunil announced that the entire fleet of approximately 34 aircraft had been cleared for flight after the underlying issues were resolved.

However, these recurring setbacks have reignited a fierce national debate over whether Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has squandered decades of time and billions of crores on a "dud" project.

The program, which traces its origins back to the early 1980s under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, remains under intense pressure to prove its worth.

The return of the TEJAS is a matter of strategic urgency for India. With active conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, and persistent tensions with neighbours Pakistan and China, the Indian Air Force (IAF) is currently facing a critical shortage of fighter squadrons.

Currently, the IAF operates between 30 and 32 squadrons against a sanctioned strength of 42. Following the retirement of the MiG-21, the absence of the TEJAS has left analysts deeply concerned about India's ability to manage a potential two-front threat.

Critics argue that a fighter designed to replace the MiG-21 is still only available in small numbers, with production further hampered by delays in engine supplies from General Electric (GE) in the United States.

While the question of whether HAL wasted time and money is blunt, experts suggest it is not entirely unfair given the slow ramp-up of production. Nevertheless, many argue that the program is a significant achievement despite self-inflicted delays and structural flaws.

Sandeep Unnithan, a senior defence journalist, suggests the slow pace stems from a flawed organisational structure where the user, the manufacturer, and the designer operated in isolated silos. He compares the TEJAS to India’s successful nuclear submarine project, noting that the Navy’s unified "all-under-one-umbrella" approach allowed for much smoother development. In contrast, the Air Force, HAL, and the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) often struggled to communicate effectively.

Air Marshal Philip Rajkumar (Retd) offers a different perspective, arguing that the 40-year timeline is misleading. He notes that serious work only truly began after 1993 following financial crises and reviews.

Despite the 1998 Pokhran-II sanctions that cut off Western technical assistance for critical systems like fly-by-wire, the first flight occurred in 2001.

He maintains that the 15-year span between full-scale development in 2004 and Final Operational Clearance in 2019 is comparable to major international projects like the Eurofighter Typhoon.

Retired HAL chief designer KP Singh also acknowledges the extended timeline but defends the effort, suggesting that while things took longer than they should have, there were valid reasons for the delays. Regarding the recent accidents, experts urge perspective.

Until 2024, the TEJAS had flown 50,000 accident-free hours. Unnithan notes that the Dubai crash was a high-risk display mishap rather than a design failure, while Rajkumar points out that the IAF used to lose 20 MiG-21s a year during the 1960s and 70s.

One of the project’s greatest regrets remains the failure of the indigenous Kaveri engine. Originally meant to power the TEJAS, it failed to meet thrust requirements and was delinked from the airframe in 2008.

While Unnithan calls this abandonment a "catastrophic mistake" compared to China’s massive investment in engine tech, Rajkumar highlights that the Kaveri effort was not a total loss. A marine version was successful, and the core engine is now being certified for the Ghatak stealth UCAV.

The most significant, albeit invisible, success of the TEJAS program is the creation of a domestic aerospace ecosystem. It has fostered a network of roughly 300 private companies capable of supplying high-tech components.

This foundation is considered more valuable than the aircraft itself. While early orders were too small to incentivise HAL to build multiple production lines, three lines are now being activated to deliver 30 aircraft annually.

Experts conclude that India has no choice but to persevere with the TEJAS. Since no nation will share "crown jewel" technologies like jet engine designs, the program must evolve into a unified national mission with strong political backing.

The TEJAS MK-1A is technically superior to the MiG-21, offering a generational leap in sensor fusion and situational awareness, and the upcoming MK-2 is expected to address remaining limitations in payload and stealth.

To call the aircraft a "dud" is to ignore the hard-won mastery of fighter design India has finally achieved.

India Today