The accidents involving the LCA Tejas aircraft should not be viewed solely as technical setbacks nor dismissed as media overreaction. They represent stress tests of developing systems, institutional coordination, and India’s narrative discipline.

Over the past decade, India has made concerted efforts towards self-reliance in the defence sector, particularly through the development of indigenous platforms such as the LCA Tejas. These platforms possess not only operational value but also symbolic significance. High-end technologies, costs, and even the visual profile of modern military platforms contributes to a perceived prestige value. These perceptions are shaped and amplified through media reporting, expert commentary and social media discourse, often influencing public narratives and market sentiment around defence systems.

While formal procurement processes are governed by technical requirements and trials, perceptions can still play an indirect role by shaping broader strategic preferences, export potential, and the confidence of prospective buyers. In some cases, state and non-state actors actively invest in shaping these perceptions, both positively for their own systems and negatively for those of competitors, driven by a mix of commercial and strategic interests. In the Indian context, recent accidents involving the LCA Tejas have triggered immediate and often disproportionate reactions in media and public discourse. This brief examines how such responses shape perceptions of an emerging indigenous platform and what they reveal about the role of narrative management in influencing India’s defence industrial credibility.

The Tejas Episodes: Incidents and Reactions

In case of the LCA Tejas fighter aircraft, three accidents have been witnessed till date, with two of these accidents involving a crash. The first accident occurred on 12 March 2024 in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan when a LCA crashed during a routine training sortie.[1]  Notably, the Tejas had first flown in 2001 and had undergone extensive testing and operational flying before the first accident.[2] The second accident involving the LCA Tejas occurred in Dubai in November 2025 when the aircraft crashed during a high-risk manoeuvre.[3] The location amplified its visibility, given the international audience and the high-profile setting. The most recent incident involving an accident of the LCA Tejas occurred in February 2026 wherein the jet was reported to have sustained major damage to its airframe.[4]

In all three cases, timing was of particular significance. The 2025 Dubai Airshow crash in particular illustrates how rapidly perception shocks can be amplified. The technical investigations had barely begun before doubts about the aircraft’s reliability flooded social media,[5] commentary columns, and media reporting. Within a few hours, the questions were no longer about what went wrong but about whether the Tejas itself could be trusted.[6] Speculation spread quickly through social media and opinion platforms. Multiple stories and opinions regarding the LCA’s engines, design integrity, supply-chain dependencies, and institutional competence of the HAL and Indian defence industry came up, before any official findings were available.[7]

These reactions are not entirely unique to the defence market since buyers across industries tend to favour systems with proven track records over those associated with repeated incidents. However, the defence market amplifies this behaviour in distinct ways. Military platforms are high-value acquisitions with long service lives, where reliability, political trust and lifecycle support are as critical as technical performance. As a result, accidents are rarely assessed as isolated technical failures. Instead, they get interpreted within broader reputational frameworks surrounding the platform and its supplier state.

This........

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