It was the "substantially higher cost" of acquiring and operating the Eurofighter Typhoon that led to its ejection from the almost $20 billion MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) project to supply 126 fighters to IAF. "The French Rafale jet, the eventual winner, beat the Typhoon hollow both in terms of life cycle costs and direct acquisition costs. The entire MMRCA project cost would have gone up by around Rs 25,000 crore if Typhoon had been selected over Rafale," a top defence ministry source said on Thursday.