A pall of grief hangs over a quiet home in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, after Wing Commander Namansh Syal lost his life in the Tejas fighter jet crash at the Dubai Air Show on Friday. Shocked relatives and neighbours gathered at his family residence.

Namansh’s uncle, Joginder Nath, recalled the moment the tragedy was verified.

“There are tenants living above me. They work in Dubai and Qatar and are engineers. My wife went upstairs, and since the tenant has come home on leave these days, she asked him what had happened and told him to confirm through his sources what the situation was. He immediately confirmed from there and told her that the boy (Namansh) has passed away and died in the crash. Then I told my brother that the Namansh is gone," said his uncle.

According to officials, the Tejas aircraft crashed during a low-altitude manoeuvre at the air show and was engulfed in flames within seconds.

Nagrota Bagwan SDM Manish Sharma said, “We received the news yesterday, and then we spoke with his family, with the mother and father. At first, we thought that he was injured, but later we learned that he had died in the crash at the air show.”

Wing Commander Namansh Syal, in his mid-thirties, is survived by his wife, also an officer in the Indian Air Force, his six-year-old daughter, and his father, a retired principal who earlier served in the Army before joining the education department.