LCA Tejas Fleet Under Maintenance Review Ahead of Vayu Shakti Exercise

A joint team from Indian Air Force and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is inspecting the entire LCA Tejas fleet after a ground incident on Feb 7, suspected to involve brake failure. Officials said it was a routine safety check and no ejection occurred.

New Delhi: A joint team from the Indian Air Force and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is conducting comprehensive maintenance inspections of the entire Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas fleet to determine the root cause of an incident earlier this month, which is suspected to have been triggered by a brake failure at a frontline airbase.

Sources in the Indian Air Force told Asianet Newsable that it’s a routine maintenance checks which is a part of Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to be carried out when incident like this takes place.

The sources clarified that no ejection occurred, as the incident involving the fighter aircraft took place on the ground rather than in flight.

Exercise Vayu Shakti 2026

It is pertinent to mention that the incident occurred at a time when the Indian Air Force was preparing for Exercise Vayu Shakti 2026, scheduled to be held on February 27 in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, casting a shadow over Tejas’s participation in the exercise.

At a curtain-raiser press conference on February 11, Vice Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Nagesh Kapoor had stated: “Full spectrum operations by fighter, transport and helicopter platforms including Tejas, Rafale, Jaguar, Mirage-2000, Su-30MKI, Hawk, MiG-29, C-130J, C-295, C-17, Chetak, ALH MK-IV, Mi-17 IV, LCH, Apache, Chinook and Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) will be executed.”

Tejas jet accidents

The incident occurred on February 7. It was the third accident involving the Tejas jets. The first one took place in March 2024 in Jaisalmer while the second one was during Dubai Air Show in 2025.

In February 2021, the Ministry of Defence had signed a ₹48,000 crore contract with HAL for the procurement of 83 Tejas Mk-1A jets for the IAF.

In September 2025, the ministry sealed another deal worth ₹62,370 crore with HAL to procure 97 Tejas MK-1A light combat aircraft for the IAF.

LCA Tejas is a single-engine multi-role fighter aircraft capable of operating in high-threat air environments.