The recent crash of India’s Tejas fighter jet at the Dubai Airshow has reignited debate not just about the causes of high-profile airshow mishaps, but also about India’s long and sometimes turbulent journey toward self-reliance in military aviation. On November 22, 2025, as spectators watched in shock, the Tejas went down during a low-altitude maneuver—a moment that quickly became a flashpoint both for political speculation and for reflection on the country’s aerospace ambitions.
As the dust settled at the Dubai Airshow, Indian news channels wasted no time in launching a barrage of sensational claims. Republic TV’s Arnab Goswami, a household name in the country’s media landscape, took to the airwaves with an explosive—albeit unsubstantiated—allegation. Goswami pointed the finger at the United States and engine manufacturer General Electric, declaring that the US maintained “unfriendly ties” with New Delhi and had intentionally slowed deliveries of advanced engines. He even suggested the US government itself might have played a role, reviving conspiracy theories that Washington harbored deep-seated fears about India’s Tejas program. As Goswami thundered, “Indian media is now blaming the US for the Tejas crash. Listen up Americans, you have been warned, India is unhappy, RECTIFY!”
He wasn’t alone. Retired Major General G. D. Bakshi joined the chorus, claiming New Delhi had “paid billions for new engines that had not arrived,” and suggested deliberate obstruction by Washington. Yet, neither Goswami nor Bakshi provided documentation or credible evidence to back up these dramatic assertions. The lack of substantiation did not go unnoticed. According to widespread online reactions, viewers lambasted the commentary as “embarrassing” and “uninformed,” with many pointing out that airshow crashes, more often than not, result from pilot error or the inherent risks of aerobatic maneuvers—not from shadowy geopolitical sabotage.
Indeed, as reported by multiple outlets, the Tejas fleet has a rare history of engine-related crashes. The Dubai incident, preliminary observers agreed, seemed to align more closely with the typical hazards of high-risk airshow demonstrations than with any grand international conspiracy. The episode, however, did more than just spark a social media storm; it cast a fresh spotlight on the broader history of India’s indigenous fighter jet development—a story that stretches back decades and is filled with both triumph and tribulation.
Long before Tejas became the pride of India’s contemporary aerospace industry, there was another homegrown marvel: the HAL HF-24 Marut. Developed in the 1960s by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), the Marut was India’s first indigenous fighter jet, a project that symbolized the nation’s post-independence aspirations for technological self-reliance. The Marut, meaning “spirit of the storm” in Sanskrit, was designed as a ground-attack aircraft with swept wings, twin engines, and a robust airframe—features intended to handle the diverse and often challenging terrains across India.
Perhaps most surprising was the man behind the machine: Kurt Tank, a legendary German aeronautical engineer who had previously designed aircraft for the Nazi Luftwaffe during World War II. After the war, Tank traversed the globe, eventually finding his way to India, where he led the Marut project and also served as Director of the Madras Institute of Technology. There, he mentored a generation of Indian engineers, including a young Abdul Kalam, who would later become the architect of India’s missile and space programs.
Tank’s vision for the Marut was ambitious—he wanted a Mach 2+ supersonic jet that could rival the world’s best. But reality intervened. India, still finding its technological footing, lacked access to engines powerful enough to bring Tank’s dream to fruition. Instead, HAL had to settle for the Rolls-Royce Orpheus turbojet, which restricted the Marut to a top speed of Mach 0.93—subsonic, and a far cry from the original supersonic ambitions. The Cold War era’s geopolitical restrictions made it all but impossible to acquire more advanced engines from abroad.
Despite these limitations, the Marut proved its worth in combat. During the 1971 Indo-Pak war, Maruts flew ground-attack missions in the western sector, including the pivotal Battle of Longewala. Pilots praised the aircraft’s stability, the reliability of its twin engines, and its rugged construction. Although eventually overshadowed by faster, more advanced jets like the MiG-21, the Marut’s legacy was secure. The prototype first took to the skies on June 17, 1961, and by 1967, production models were entering service with the Indian Air Force. In total, 147 Maruts were built, all operated by the IAF.
Yet, for all its achievements, the Marut never quite captured the public imagination in the way that, say, the American F-16 or the French Mirage did. Several factors contributed to its fading legacy: the engine limitations that kept it from achieving supersonic speeds, a lack of export success, rapid technological change, and, perhaps most crucially, policy gaps that hindered the long-term development of India’s aerospace sector. By the late 1980s, the Marut had been retired, its contributions largely forgotten outside of military and aviation circles.
But the Marut’s impact was far from negligible. The program laid the technological and institutional foundation for India’s future aerospace endeavors. The expertise, testing protocols, and lessons learned during the Marut years directly informed the development of the Tejas and other modern projects. As India continues to grapple with the challenges of building cutting-edge fighter jets, the story of the Marut offers both a cautionary tale and a source of inspiration.
The Tejas crash in Dubai, while tragic, is not the first time India’s aviation ambitions have faced setbacks. What sets this episode apart is the intensity of the public and media reaction—fueled in large part by the highly charged, sometimes conspiratorial rhetoric on Indian television. The rush to assign blame to foreign actors, especially in the absence of evidence, reflects not only the pressures of a 24-hour news cycle but also deeper anxieties about India’s quest for technological independence and recognition on the world stage.
For now, investigators continue to sift through the wreckage, looking for concrete answers about what went wrong in Dubai. Meanwhile, the debate rages on—sometimes grounded in fact, sometimes veering into the realm of the fantastical. What’s clear, though, is that every crash, every setback, and every breakthrough is a chapter in India’s ongoing story of aerospace innovation—a story that began with the Marut, continues with the Tejas, and will no doubt carry on, turbulence and all, into the future.
