By Dipak Kurmi
The skies over Ahmedabad turned into a theatre of horror on the afternoon of June 12, 2025, as Air India Flight AI-171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London’s Gatwick Airport, met a fiery fate mere moments after takeoff. Carrying 242 souls on board, the aircraft struggled to gain altitude and then plummeted to the ground around 1:38 pm, erupting into a colossal fireball that sent shockwaves across the nation. The pilot, Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, had barely managed to issue a Mayday call to Air Traffic Control before the jetliner lost contact, marking the tragic beginning of one of the darkest aviation disasters in India’s modern history.
The term “Mayday,” derived from the French “m’aider” or “help me,” is the highest level of distress communication in aviation, indicating an immediate and life-threatening emergency. It is always declared three times in succession – “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday”—to ensure clarity even amidst noisy transmissions. In the case of AI-171, the call was made in those critical last seconds, as the aircraft failed to climb beyond 825 feet. Aviation expert Sanjay Lazar noted that the catastrophic failure to gain altitude, likely exacerbated by a heavy fuel load for the long-haul journey, intensified the explosion upon impact. Emergency services rushed to the crash site, where thick smoke billowed and rescue operations commenced amid chaos and devastation.
The tragedy of Flight AI-171 has once again turned the nation’s attention to the vulnerabilities within its aviation sector, rekindling memories of past disasters that have scarred the country’s aviation history. India has witnessed several catastrophic crashes over the decades, each adding to a grim legacy.
One of the most devastating was the Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision in 1996, when Saudia Flight 763 and Kazakhstan Airlines Flight 1907 collided in the skies over Haryana, killing 349 people. It remains India’s deadliest aviation disaster and led to sweeping changes, including the mandatory installation of Traffic Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS) on all commercial aircraft.
More recently, the tragic crash of Air India Express Flight 1344 in Kozhikode during the COVID-19 pandemic in August 2020 served as a grim reminder of the dangers posed by India’s tabletop runways. Amid heavy rainfall, the Boeing 737 skidded off the slick runway, plunged into a valley, and split into two, resulting in 21 fatalities. A similar fate befell Air India Express Flight 812 in Mangaluru in 2010, when the aircraft overshot the tabletop runway and burst into flames, killing 158 people.
These incidents underline the recurring themes of poor weather conditions, pilot error, and infrastructural shortcomings. In July 2000, Alliance Air Flight 7412 crashed into a residential area in Patna during its final approach, killing 60 people. The crash exposed serious flaws in handling at smaller urban airports and led to upgrades in approach protocols. Likewise, the 1990 crash of Indian Airlines Flight 605 in Bengaluru, which killed 92 people, highlighted the challenges pilots faced in adapting to new-generation aircraft such as the Airbus A320.
The country’s aviation sector has also suffered tragedies in its formative years. In 1988, Indian Airlines Flight 113 crashed on approach to Ahmedabad in low visibility, killing 133 of the 135 on board. Investigations revealed a combination of pilot error, poor weather data, and lapses by air traffic control. A decade earlier, on January 1, 1978, Air India Flight 855 plunged into the Arabian Sea minutes after takeoff from Mumbai. The cause? A faulty Attitude Director Indicator that misled the pilot, contributing to spatial disorientation and the deaths of all 213 passengers and crew.
Globally, aviation disasters like the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH370 in 2014, which still haunts aviation investigators, and the downing of MH17 over Ukraine, where 298 lives were lost, illustrate how unpredictable and complex aviation safety can be. Tragedies such as the Air France Flight AF447 crash in 2009 over the Atlantic and the China Airlines disaster in 2002 further stress the urgency of international cooperation in enhancing aviation safety protocols.
The recent Air India disaster is not merely a tale of mechanical failure or operational misfortune. It raises difficult questions about aircraft maintenance, regulatory oversight, and infrastructure modernisation. The fact that a sophisticated, state-of-the-art aircraft like the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner could suffer such a catastrophic failure in broad daylight near a major Indian city is cause for serious concern.
It also puts a spotlight on the effectiveness of emergency response and the quality of training imparted to both cockpit and ground personnel. The quick issuance of a Mayday call by Captain Sabharwal, though tragically unable to avert disaster, at least reflects the professionalism and presence of mind expected from seasoned pilots. Yet, the sequence of failure that led to that moment must be dissected with ruthless precision by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
As India emerges as one of the fastest-growing aviation markets in the world, the lessons from each of these tragedies must not fade into statistical reports and safety manuals. The recurrence of similar patterns – overshoots on wet runways, poor visibility during approach, inadequate infrastructure at regional airports – suggests that systemic issues continue to plague the sector despite technological progress.
Public trust in air travel is built on the promise of rigorous safety and accountability. When that trust is shaken, as it was on June 12, the consequences are not limited to the victims and their families. The entire industry suffers a credibility crisis, prompting passengers, both domestic and international, to question the safety of flying Indian carriers.
It is imperative that the investigation into the AI-171 disaster is not just swift but transparent. India must lead with accountability and not wait for international agencies to diagnose its problems. Each crash must serve as a catalyst for reform. Upgrades in aviation infrastructure, tighter regulatory mechanisms, weather monitoring systems, and comprehensive pilot training must not be delayed.
Moreover, the DGCA must consider regular audits of older aircraft, scrutinise fuel management protocols, and invest in real-time data analytics that can help identify potential risks before they become fatal. At a time when India is expanding its aviation footprint globally, the burden of safe skies rests not just on engineering and automation, but on policy, preparedness, and priority.
The harrowing fate of Air India Flight AI-171 must serve as a watershed moment. Aviation disasters, while often triggered by rare sequences of events, are rarely without prior warning signs. Whether in the cockpit, the control tower, or the corridors of aviation bureaucracy, someone must ask the right questions before lives are lost.
India has the technology, the talent, and the tenacity to build one of the safest airspaces in the world. What remains to be seen is whether it has the political and institutional will to act upon the painful lessons history continues to repeat.
In the wake of this calamity, as families mourn and investigators sift through debris, a single question looms large: Could this have been prevented? For 242 souls, that answer comes too late. But for the millions who will board flights tomorrow, it is a question that India must now answer with conviction, reform, and resolve.
(The writer can be reached at dipakkurmiglpltd@gmail.com)
