Published November 25, 2025
DAWN
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
IT was meant to be like any other day of mastery and daredevilry in Wing Commander Namansh Syal’s life. His plan was to showcase the acclaimed calisthenics of Indian Air Force’s largely homegrown if acrimoniously delayed light combat aircraft Tejas before a global audience at the Dubai Air Show last week. Fate had other plans. The Tejas fell silent as it dove to the ground during an aerobatic manoeuvre killing Syal in the horrific fireball it became.
Things go wrong when least expected. The Titanic comes to mind. Another example is of Yuri Gagarin, the hero of our world of science and wonder, the first man to go into outer space in 1959. The Soviet cosmonaut died eight years later when the MiG-15 he was flying with a co-pilot in a test flight crashed in bad weather. For the Tejas, it was the second crash in 20 months, but the pilot had bailed out safely then. The high-profile Apollo disasters showed the best technology can be flawed. All three astronauts perished in the 1967 fire in a pre-launch test of Apollo-1. The Apollo-13 accident on the other hand happened in outer space, but miraculously no lives were lost.
Syal’s tragedy prodded a gentle side of the human spirit when deeply felt tributes started coming from across the border to the fallen Indian. One heartwarming letter published on Indian social media apparently from a Pakistani well-wisher is the kind of stuff that helps tone down the toxicity unleashed on both sides by the short and bitter military stand-off in May between the two countries.
DAWN
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
IT was meant to be like any other day of mastery and daredevilry in Wing Commander Namansh Syal’s life. His plan was to showcase the acclaimed calisthenics of Indian Air Force’s largely homegrown if acrimoniously delayed light combat aircraft Tejas before a global audience at the Dubai Air Show last week. Fate had other plans. The Tejas fell silent as it dove to the ground during an aerobatic manoeuvre killing Syal in the horrific fireball it became.
Things go wrong when least expected. The Titanic comes to mind. Another example is of Yuri Gagarin, the hero of our world of science and wonder, the first man to go into outer space in 1959. The Soviet cosmonaut died eight years later when the MiG-15 he was flying with a co-pilot in a test flight crashed in bad weather. For the Tejas, it was the second crash in 20 months, but the pilot had bailed out safely then. The high-profile Apollo disasters showed the best technology can be flawed. All three astronauts perished in the 1967 fire in a pre-launch test of Apollo-1. The Apollo-13 accident on the other hand happened in outer space, but miraculously no lives were lost.
Syal’s tragedy prodded a gentle side of the human spirit when deeply felt tributes started coming from across the border to the fallen Indian. One heartwarming letter published on Indian social media apparently from a Pakistani well-wisher is the kind of stuff that helps tone down the toxicity unleashed on both sides by the short and bitter military stand-off in May between the two countries.
Syal’s tragedy prodded a gentle side of the human spirit when deeply felt tributes started coming from across the border.
“To the Indian Air Force, to the family now navigating an ocean of absence: I offer what words can never carry — condolence wrapped in understanding that only those who’ve worn wings can truly know. A pilot has not merely fallen. A guardian of impossible altitudes has been summoned home. Somewhere tonight, a uniform hangs unworn. Somewhere, a child asks when the father returns. Somewhere, the sky itself feels emptier.” This letter from Pakistan was shared online by Sabrang India, an NGO that works for human rights and communal harmony in South Asia.
Among the grieving recipients would be Syal’s wife Afshan, herself an IAF officer. The condolence message reflected a sense of empathy from across the borders. It slammed the loutishness that passes for patriotic fervour between the two countries.
The letter purportedly from a PAF veteran could not be completely ascertained for authenticity, but such sentiments are not unknown to exist in India and Pakistan and occasionally do carry the day on both sides.
There is palpable moping in the Indian media about the likelihood of business loss from the second consecutive crash of Tejas in 20 months. This is the kind of stuff that makes the soul cringe. I had a similar experience working with a Western news agency when the Rwanda massacres were happening. The news of daily gory killings had become smaller than a single column weather insert. Then one day, the stringer in Kigali filed a story about how the massacres were negatively impacting Rwanda’s coffee crop. The bells at the New York Stock Exchange went wild, and the news agency’s stringer was publicly praised as a role model.
Britain’s fabled Red Arrows flying heroes have been involved in several flight accidents, but did we ever hear of the Hawk T1 jet losing money in the bargain? Red Arrows lost Flt Lt Jon Egging in 2011. Egging’s Hawk T1 jet crashed after a display at the Bournemouth Air Festival, leading to the determination that G-force impairment may have contributed to the crash. There is speculation that a similar roller-coaster-like impairment may have visited Syal, which comes with sharp acceleration against gravity. Cpl Bayliss died in 2018 when his plane crashed at RAF Valley shortly after take-off during a faux engine failure manoeuvre as the pilot Flt Lt David Stark ejected safely.
The Wire carried a troubling report on the problems India has faced in defence manufacturing and vending hardware to foreign buyers. “The Tejas crash inevitably revives memories of an earlier disastrous export venture: the sale of its seven Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopters (ALHs) to Ecuador in 2008-2009 for $42.5 million, of which four crashed,” wrote well-regarded defence analyst Rahul Bedi. “These crashes eventually led to the Ecuador Air Force (EAF) terminating its ALH contract with HAL in October 2015, in a major setback to what was then the first ever major export of an indigenous military platform.”
If money is really a concern, then a great tribute to Syal’s death could be a national call for total transparency in arms deals that Indian governments have become so brazenly infamous for.
Instead, Syal’s death has set off a frantic search for someone to blame. The official inquiry hasn’t begun, but the more nationalist TV discussants on Indian channels are blaming the US for allegedly selling Indian Air Force inferior engines used in Tejas.
At a human level, Syal’s death and the heart-tugging tributes pouring in for him can be seen as a reminder that people-to-people ties deserve to be placed at the heart of promoting a nicer, friendlier future for both countries. Let that be the essence of what the letter said in its tribute to the Indian pilot.
jawednaqvi@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2025
No comments:
Post a Comment