The spectacular video of a fighter plane that has crashed in an exhibition at the Dubai Air Show

The Ministry of Defense of the United Arab Emirates also confirmed the death of the pilot on the X social network and reported that the fire and emergency teams, which are currently managing the situation at the scene, “responded quickly to the incident.”

According to the information offered by the Indian Army, also in X, the accident aircraft was a plane Hal Tejas of the Indian Air Force, an Indian fighter aircraft that was participating in an air display at the Dubai Airshow aerospace industry event, which is being held these days in the Emirati city.

“The Indian Air Force deeply regrets the loss of life and accompanies the family in their grief,” the message added in reference to the deceased pilot.

This accident occurs a day after the Government of India’s fact-checking platform alerted on its X account about the circulation of several videos claiming that at the Dubai Airshow 2025 An Indian fighter plane had suffered an oil leak.

The platform denied these claims and clarified that the videos showed the routine and intentional draining of condensed water from the Environmental Control System (ECS) and the Onboard Oxygen Generating System (OBOGS), a standard procedure for aircraft operating in high humidity conditions, such as those in Dubai.

According to the Government, this false narrative was “being deliberately spread by some accounts to question the proven technical reliability of the plane with baseless propaganda.”

The Emirati newspaper Gulf News He noted that the accident was witnessed by those attending the event, who recorded videos in which the Tejas plane can be seen on display before suddenly losing altitude, which was followed by a column of smoke that surprised the visitors.

This same medium reported that Air shows scheduled for the afternoon were suspended at the Dubai Airshow, which ends next Monday.

Several Indian military aircraft had already suffered accidents repeatedly in the past.

In December 2021, a helicopter type Mi-17V5 of the Air Force crashed shortly after takeoff. 14 people, including Chief of Defense Staff General Bipin Rawat, died in the incident, which occurred in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

In 2019, an Indian military pilot was killed and two others were injured after his stunt plane collided with another aircraft during exercises in the southern Indian city of Bangalore, while in October 2017 at least five members of the Indian Air Force died after an M-17 helicopter crashed in Arunachal Pradesh, in the northeast.