The Indian Air Force has flown the body of the pilot killed in the crash at the Dubai Airshow back to India.
The Indian embassy in the UAE said ambassador Deepak Mittal paid his respects to Wing Commander Namansh Syal. The embassy described the pilot as “an Indian braveheart”.
Footage on social media showed the ambassador laying a wreath on the coffin, draped in the Indian flag, before it was carried on to an aircraft, as the UAE military provided a ceremonial guard of honour.
The pilot died after his HAL Tejas combat jet crashed on Friday while taking part in a demonstration at the air show at Dubai World Central.
As in inquiry began, experts who attended the show and spoke to The National on Saturday said it was too early to identify a cause and that speculation was irresponsible.
“These events are rare and tragic but it sadly does happen,” said Alan Peaford, editor of Arabian Aerospace magazine. “And it is more likely to happen at an air show than anywhere else because these aircraft are pushed to the limit. We must wait until the inquiry has determined what caused the crash, as the jet had been performing well. We should not speculate.”
The Dubai Airshow is highly regulated, with operators and pilots obliged to follow strict safety rules set down by UAE authorities.
Mr Peaford said these combat jets operate within strict parameters − known as a “box” − at the show, outside of which they are not allowed to stray.
“The reason for that is if something goes wrong, the aircraft will crash into the box,” said Mr Peaford. “It was not a threat to the crowd. The air show did all the right things but people will be traumatised by seeing it.”
Alan Warnes, editor of AirForces Monthly, said spectators at Dubai Airshow are placed significantly far back from where planes operate.
“There is good safety control, as you would expect in Dubai,” he said. “[The crash] happened a long way from the spectators,” he added, estimating the distance at about one kilometre.
The jet, a single-engine 4.5-generation fighter, was built by state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and powered by a General Electric engine.
It is the second known crash of a Tejas fighter. A pilot was able to eject from the stricken plane in an incident in India last year.
“It is not good to speculate on the cause of the crash,” said Mr Warnes. “The Tejas has experienced many issues, so it is not something I like to do.” He said the inquiry would be complex and could take up to a year.
The Tejas – designed and manufactured in India – has been in development since the 1980s and aims to wean India off its ageing fleet of largely Russian and ex-Soviet fighters.
The jet – which can carry air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons – first flew as a prototype in the early 2000s but the programme has faced delays.
Mr Peaford said these types of planes are hugely complex to build but HAL was a respected manufacturer and the aircraft had GE engines.
The Tejas that crashed was a Mark 1, a basic version of the plane, said Mr Warnes. Some of these have been delivered to the Indian Air Force but the more advanced Mark 1-A is still not in service, though is expected in the next few years.
The Indian Air Force has orders for scores of the aircraft, which has been broadly compared to the Swedish Saab Gripen fighter.
“The Tejas is a source of national pride in India,” said Mr Warnes. “It is the country’s first indigenous multirole fighter. They have lost a pilot and pride in the programme will be dented.”
The fatal accident came on the last day of the show, one of the world’s largest aviation events, at which India had been showcasing its planes and assessing interest from potential foreign buyers.
It was widely reported that aircraft resumed flying at the show at Al Maktoum International Airport a few hours after the fatal crash.
Crashes at air shows have become rarer in recent years as safety checks have increased. The deadliest was in 2002, when a Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-27 crashed into the crowd at Sknyliv airfield, near Lviv in western Ukraine, killing 77 people and injuring hundreds.
