Fatal Ascent

The crash of Air India Flight 171 is the grimmest aviation disaster in India since the 2010 Mangalore runway catastrophe. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner plunged to the ground moments after take-off from Ahmedabad, killing a total 265 people (there was only one survivor on board) and injuring dozens more on the ground. The aircraft smashed into a hostel housing young resident doctors, killing three MBBS students and hospitalising at least 45 others. What should have been an uneventful flight to London turned, in seconds, into a fireball of wreckage and grief. The scale of devastation could hardly be more harrowing.

The dead include Indian and foreign nationals, business travellers, students, crew members and bystanders who had no link to aviation except misfortune. For a nation that had only just begun to believe again in the revival of its national airline, the crash is a shattering moment of reckoning.

For Air India, now three years into its ambitious post-privatisation overhaul, the crash eviscerates carefully curated gains. The airline had been steadily emerging from its decades-long decline under state ownership. Once synonymous with mismanagement, Air India had begun placing bold bets on its future by merging with Vistara, ordering new planes, repainting cabins and revamping its digital experience.

But this disaster brings the narrative of a hopeful turnaround to a brutal halt. It is the first fatal crash involving Air India’s Dreamliner fleet - jets symbolising the carrier’s global aspirations. Though investigators have yet to determine the cause, the fact that the plane came down so violently and so soon after take-off raises urgent questions. Was it a technical failure, a lapse in maintenance, a crew error or a software fault? Boeing, whose own reputation is already under strain from manufacturing lapses and two high-profile 737 MAX crashes, has yet to come up with something concrete.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has launched a formal investigation, though its own record of lax oversight invites little public confidence. India’s air safety regime has always been a step behind its aviation boom. The country is poised to become the world’s third-largest air travel market, but its regulatory architecture remains weak. Chronic understaffing, audit delays and a tolerance for corner-cutting plague the DGCA. Pilots routinely complain of fatigue, while engineers face pressure to keep aircraft flying with subpar resources.

The Tata Group has little room to deflect blame. Branding campaigns and aircraft orders cannot paper over the essentials. For India, the crash is a gut punch. Air India is part of the national imagination, born of J.R.D. Tata’s pioneering spirit. Its failure is felt not only in stock prices or passenger volumes, but in the faith of a public that entrusted it with their lives.

After Mangalore, Kozhikode and now Ahmedabad, it ought to be clear that there is no premium in modern aviation more valuable than safety. No slogan can bring back 265 lives. But full and unflinching public accountability might just prevent the next disaster.