The unfortunate Tejas Mk-1 Light Combat Aircraft crash at the Dubai Air Show last Friday and the death of Indian Air Force Wing Commander Namansh Syal piloting it, have cast a negative spotlight on the indigenous 4th-generation fighter’s readiness for the global market.And while the official inquiry will determine the cause of the dramatic accident, it raises doubts among potential buyers – not only over the aircraft’s reliability, handling and safety, but also about the multiplicity of agencies involved in its design, development, manufacturing, certification and testing, all operating with limited inter-agency coordination.Officials of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Tejas’s manufacturer, were unavailable for comment. The company released a statement to the stock exchange, stating there would be no impact of the “isolated incident” at the air show, which was due to “exceptional circumstances”, on performance and deliveries.Also read: Dubai Crash May Further Dim Export Prospects For a Tejas Already Vulnerable Over Imported PartsSenior defence and aerospace officials in Bengaluru and New Delhi said Tejas was the product of a “complex and fragmented” ecosystem – something long recognised locally. However, this was downplayed by the concerned authorities and reinforced by the compliant media, which predictably framed the Dubai crash as an ‘evolutionary and near-inevitable’ step in the fighter’s developmental and operational cycle.But what was once a glossed-over background weakness has now become a visible problem, sharply highlighted by the Dubai crash, directly shaping global perceptions regarding India’s credibility as a serious aerospace exporter.Speaking anonymously, these industry officials said Tejas’ export hurdles reflected the programme’s uneven institutional structure, rooted in its inception in 1981, its maiden test flight in 2001 and its series production that began in 2014 – thirty-three years after the project was launched.One senior industry official in Bengaluru, declining to be named, said that such a highly visible accident – even if ultimately traced to pilot error or other non-systemic failures – would still not erase the programme’s deeper structural challenges.These include multiple stakeholders, patchy coordination, high levels of dependence on imported systems and shifting operational requirements – all aspects that prospective air forces closely scrutinise when evaluating a fighter’s reliability before procurement.Amit Cowshish, former ministry of defence financial adviser for acquisitions, observed that the Tejas programme had struggled under decades of disjointed oversight, with multiple agencies operating in isolation.“These systemic gaps caused delays, mismatched designs and constant improvisations and the inevitable jugaad or technical improvisation,” he noted. But after the recent crash, such shortcomings have been laid bare, reinforcing doubts among potential buyers about India’s ability to deliver a modern fighter reliably, efficiently and at scale, he added.These myriad institutional gaps, meanwhile, had prompted moves in recent years for a single supervisory authority for Tejas – akin to the US’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), France’s Direction Générale de l’Armement or Sweden’s Defence Materiel Administration – to unify research and development, component and systems procurement, testing and industrial oversight. Yet, many such initiatives, despite much hand-wringing, ultimately stalled, leaving the programme’s fragmented structure intact.Smoke billows from the Tejas fighter that crashed during the Dubai Air Show, November 2025. Photo: PTI, via third party.In the United States, fighter programmes are supported jointly by the Air Force Research Laboratory, which manages Air Force-specific research, development and testing and DARPA, the Department of Defence’s high-risk technology agency sponsoring cutting-edge experimental projects across services.Unlike in India, the overall American system brings the Air Force Research Laboratory together with major manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman under a unified, highly coordinated management structure. Design, testing, production and operational evaluation follow clear chains of responsibility, with stable qualitative requirements or specs for platforms and professionally managed changes – unlike repeated ad hoc revisions that have marked the Tejas programme.Tight integration – critical to hi-tech projects – reduces delays, ensures accountability and allows lessons from testing to be rapidly absorbed – in sharp contrast to the segmented, multi-agency and often reactive approach surrounding Tejas.France follows a similar model, with Dassault working closely with the country’s defence agency, overseeing procurement, research and development and military system acquisition, while Sweden’s Gripen has benefitted from Saab’s close integration with the Defence Materiel Administration, responsible for developing, acquiring and delivering operational military equipment.In both cases, cohesive oversight minimised fragmentation and mitigated programme confusion and friction, creating conditions that allowed aircraft development to proceed efficiently and on schedule, ensuring reliability and inspiring confidence among both domestic and international stakeholders. The Indian Air Force and Indian Navy’s faith in well-managed combat aircraft platforms is amply reflected in their recent purchases of 36 Rafale aircraft and 26 Rafale-Marine aircraft, underscoring the value both place on proven operational performance and structured programme oversight.Industry officials concur that the Tejas project’s challenges were not due to a lack of skill or engineering competence, which were available in plenty, but to the absence of a unified authority empowered to oversee the programme from concept to delivery. Instead, responsibility was dispersed across multiple design bureaus, ministries, laboratories, certification agencies and state-run industry, with little coordination or accountability for delays and mismatches.Also read: The Dubai Tejas Crash Is More Than a PR Embarrassment – It Threatens to Deepen a Credibility GapConsequently, even after 44 years, the Tejas programme is still struggling to produce enough aircraft to prevent the Indian Air Force’s fighter strength from falling below its current level of 29 combat squadrons, well short of the authorised 42.5. One air force veteran dryly observed that the Tejas programme, now middle-aged, had outlasted his thirty-five-year service career, yet is nowhere near achieving operational adulthood.Even within the Indian Air Force, the Tejas’s tardy pace of induction reflected the programme’s uneven progress: an aspect closely watched by potential buyers.For instance, the first Tejas squadron, No. 45 ‘Flying Daggers’, based at Sulur in Tamil Nadu, with 18 aircraft inducted from July 2016 onwards, was given Initial Operational Clearance II. This was a locally-defined intermediate authorisation category – unfamiliar to most other air forces – that allowed Tejas to enter service through a homespun strategic workaround despite lacking full combat capability.These Tejas fighters did not include all key systems or full weapon integration, effectively making 45 Squadron a quasi-operational unit and its aircraft the equivalent of ‘technology demonstrators’.Only the second Tejas squadron, No. 18 ‘Flying Bullets’, currently at Naliya in the Kutch region, entered service with an equal number of Final Operational Clearance platforms, representing a fully validated combat-ready configuration. Analysts noted that this contrast – with the first squadron still undergoing upgrades – sent a clear signal to foreign evaluators that Tejas was far from being a mature, market-ready fighter, raising doubts about its export viability.Understanding the persistent challenges of the Tejas programme requires examining the multiple agencies responsible for its design, development, testing and operational evaluation – agencies that often pursued their own agendas with little coordination or accountability, and sometimes neither.At its core, the Aeronautical Development Agency handles conceptualisation, design, integration and prototype flight testing, working with Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) laboratories and with HAL to validate the fighter’s airframe, avionics and systems specifications.The Aeronautical Development Agency also manages software integration, flight control algorithms and testing protocols, but it does not control production or procurement, leaving a persistent gap between design and delivery.The Ministry of Defence-managed DRDO contributes critical systems – electronic warfare suites, radar, avionics and missile integration – but its role ends largely at design and prototyping, creating recurring disconnects with HAL’s manufacturing and supply chain operations.HAL, India’s state-owned, near-monopolistic aerospace manufacturer handles Tejas’s series production, assembly, integration of a multitude of foreign components and maintenance. It converts the Aeronautical Development Agency’s designs into operational aircraft, manages quality assurance and attempts to meet production timelines – on which it has chronically struggled and been roundly castigated recently by Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh.The Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification, part of the DRDO, oversees airworthiness approvals, validates flight test data and inspects production aircraft. But in its interactions with HAL and the Aeronautical Development Agency, it has often been reactive, creating bottlenecks when certification clashes with production or design changes.The Aircraft Systems Testing Establishment, operated by the Indian Air Force, evaluates Tejas’s flight performance, certifies upgrades and weapons systems and provides operational feedback, but as one of many separate agencies, its influence over integrated outcomes is limited.Also read: Two Decades Later, IAF’s Plan to Upgrade Multi-Role Fighters to ‘Super Sukhoi’ Status Remains StillbornAnd finally, the Department of Defence Production oversees HAL administratively, setting production targets, budgets and approving imports, but lacking the authority to integrate the wider programme. It supervises Tejas’s overall production planning and resource allocation without influencing design, testing or operational integration.Compounding this multitude of players is Air Headquarters in New Delhi, frequently revising operational requirements, technical specifications and performance expectations mid-stream, forcing designers and integrators to rework systems already in testing or worse, in production. Industry officials and some air force veterans noted that while user involvement was essential, the absence of a central authority to stabilise Air Headquarters constantly shifting operational demands left Tejas in limbo: existing in a constantly moving-goalpost environment.“The cost of this fragmentation is not just programmatic – it is reputational,” observed a senior industry official in Bengaluru. He added, on condition of anonymity, that the programme struggles to deliver due to a confused and overlapping agency system, a problem laid bare by the Dubai crash, which reinforced concerns among domestic and international stakeholders.Echoing this sentiment, a two-star Air Force veteran noted that HAL’s persistent Tejas delivery delays not only frustrated the service and strained operational readiness but also eroded confidence in the state-owned manufacturer among Indian stakeholders for a fighter meant to anchor India’s air power. Such persistent delays, coupled with the Dubai crash, have heightened doubts among international buyers – not only about the ability to meet schedules, but also about the aircraft’s dependable performance in operational scenarios, he said, declining to be identified.Furthermore, Tejas remains untested in combat, with its performance under operational stress yet to be proven against established aircraft worldwide. Until it demonstrates consistent reliability in operational conditions, prospective buyers would continue to view it as an evolving platform rather than a fully operational fighter – a perception reinforced by the Dubai crash, which exposed the programme’s inherent vulnerabilities.With focused reforms and coordinated execution, Tejas could well evolve into a capable, competitively priced world-class light fighter, provided the credulous media and submissive veterans stop spinning platitudes over the Dubai crash and glossing over its lessons.Only by demanding accountability and implementing a mission-mode formula with a single empowered authority to execute the programme can Tejas realise its full and deserved potential.