The Indian Air Force’s indigenous light combat Tejas jets will start flying from next week, two months after the entire fleet was grounded for safety checks after an aircraft crashed at a frontline airbase.

D.K. Sunil, chairman and managing director of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) — the manufacturer of the jets — on Thursday said the Tejas Mk1s were close to resuming operations in the IAF, with clearance expected within days.

Sunil said the entire fleet of 34 Tejas jets would fly from April 8 as the glitch found in an aircraft’s software had been resolved.

The fleet was grounded in the first week of February after a light combat aircraft crashed at a key frontline airbase because of a suspected brake failure during landing after a training sortie. The pilot of the single-seater aircraft had ejected safely, but the aircraft suffered serious structural damage.

The February crash was the third such incident involving the Tejas fighter jet, the country’s flagship light combat aircraft which Prime Minister Narendra Modi has hailed as “India’s pride”. Tejas LCA was inducted in 2016 and the IAF is preparing to induct its advanced variant (LCA Mk-1A).

Sources said the resumption of operations would follow a structured safety protocol jointly overseen by HAL and the IAF. As part of this process, all aircraft will undergo mandatory “one-time checks” before take-off — standard preventive inspections aimed at ensuring compliance with updated safety benchmarks.

Asked about the delays in the delivery of the Tejas MK-1A variant to the IAF, Sunil said HAL would be ready to deliver over 20 jets by December and that six of them could be supplied soon, The final tests of radar, avionics and missile-firing systems are currently underway.