"Light" crashes in Dubai, Indian media: US is fully responsible

The crash of the Indian-made "Light" fighter jet at the Dubai Air Show has not yet had its investigation results officially released, but Indian domestic public opinion has quickly turned its attention to an unexpected direction - the United States.

Recently, several Indian media outlets including "India Today", "Economic Times", and "Hindustan Times" have published articles linking this accident to the engine (F404) provided by General Electric (GE) of the United States.

In short, the logic of Indian media can be divided into two factions: one faction represented by "18 News Channel", "Economic Times", and "Hindustan Times" implies that there may be potential problems with GE's F404 engine, questioning whether it can withstand the high-intensity maneuvers of the aircraft;

Another faction is led by "India Today" and "The Times of India", whose arguments are more focused on accusing the US of being "unfriendly", criticizing the American side for delaying and being slow in delivering the engine, affecting the normal deployment and maintenance of the "Light" fighter jet, which indirectly caused safety hazards.

Overnight, the United States seemed to become the "external culprit" in Indian public opinion responsible for this crash.

But in fact, if we have paid attention to the history of India's indigenous aviation engine development, this black sheep might not necessarily be able to be blamed on the United States.

"Light" is the first domestically developed fighter jet of India after independence. At the time of its project initiation, the supporting power system was originally the indigenous "Kaveri" engine - a power unit developed by the Indian Gas Turbine Research Institute since 1986, which was originally intended to prove that India could join the ranks of the world's elite in the aviation industry.

But reality was very embarrassing, as India severely underestimated the difficulty of developing advanced aviation engines:

On one hand, the Indian Gas Turbine Research Institute set its goals too high, directly requiring the performance of the "Kaveri" to match the M88-3 engine used in the French "Rafale" fighter jet;

On the other hand, when the project was initiated, the foundation of India's aviation industry was extremely weak, with only limited experience in repairing and assembling aircraft, almost starting from scratch.

Modern aviation engines are known as the "crown jewel of industry", involving hundreds of key technologies such as single-crystal turbine blades, ceramic matrix composites, and dual-alloy integral discs. Each of these requires materials science, process engineering, and long-term test data accumulation, which were almost completely blank fields for India's aviation industry at that time.

Even more absurdly, the Indian government also proposed a task of full localization of the "Kaveri" engine, requiring the design and material production processes of the engine to be based entirely on Indian research institutions and enterprises.

The result is predictable.

Finally, the Indian Ministry of Defense had to officially admit the failure of the "Kaveri" engine development plan in 2014; in 2024, after ten years of perseverance, India chose to bow to the United States and purchased General Electric's aviation engine (F404) as the core power unit of the "Light" fighter jet.

Actually speaking, General Electric was quite generous. In addition to delivering the engine (F404) a bit slowly, General Electric also transferred 80% of the technology of another engine (F414) to India.

Even so, the Indian media still managed to blame General Electric for the "Light" crash, which can only be said to be a unique global technique of India's "blaming others".

Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1849577500591307/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author.