Deepinder Goyal’s LAT Aerospace Prototype Achieves uSTOL Milestone, Crashes in Test Flight

Deepinder Goyal-backed aviation start-up LAT Aerospace on Thursday said its Lat One v0.1 prototype successfully demonstrated ultra-short take-off and landing capability during its maiden test flight, but crashed shortly afterwards. The company and its backers said the outcome was anticipated as part of an iterative test programme, noting that pre-flight simulations had already identified structural weaknesses and engineers expected the early prototype to fail in later stages of the trial.

Lat One v0.1 Prototype

Goyal, founder and chief executive of Eternal, shared a video of the flight on X and described the test as a technical milestone despite the loss of the aircraft. “uSTOL achieved. Achievement unlocked,” he wrote, adding that “the plane crashed a bit later, which we knew was going to happen due to structural defects.” He said getting an aircraft to take off accounts for only a small part of the challenge, with safe and repeatable landings posing the greater engineering hurdle.

LAT Aerospace said the primary objective of the Lat One v0.1 programme was to validate the ultra-short take-off and landing envelope. With that benchmark met, the team plans to incorporate lessons from the flight and subsequent failure into the next iteration, Lat One v0.2. The company said work on the new prototype is already under way, with a focus on addressing structural issues and completing a full mission profile.

The start-up has been hiring aerospace engineers and systems specialists as it moves from early concept validation to successive hardware builds. Founders and investors have repeatedly described the effort as a long-term, research-intensive programme rather than a near-term commercial venture, stressing that repeated, instrumented test flights and incremental design improvements are standard practice in aircraft development.

Leadership & Aim

LAT Aerospace was co-founded by former Zomato COO Surabhi Das, with Goyal as a non-executive cofounder and lead investor. The company has announced a $20 million funding tranche and has spoken of a broader $50 million commitment. Goyal has said he has personally committed $25 million and infused about $10 million so far, while the company estimates it has spent roughly $20 million to date.

The founders have positioned LAT as pursuing a reimagined model of regional air mobility. The company aims to develop small, high-frequency aircraft capable of operating from extremely short runways, which it says could enable point-to-point travel without conventional airport infrastructure. LAT has also outlined longer-term concepts for larger short take-off aircraft as part of a phased network vision.

Challenges

Aviation specialists note that proving short take-off performance is only an initial step. Structural integrity, flight-control reliability, repeatable landings and regulatory certification typically present the most demanding challenges. LAT has acknowledged these hurdles, saying the v0.1 crash was a planned learning outcome and that future iterations will prioritise landing dynamics, structural reinforcement and compliance with safety and certification requirements.