The fact that fatal aeroplane crashes are few and far between will give scant comfort to the hundreds of grieving families of the victims of the Air India AI 171 disaster in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, on Thursday.
With 241 dead on the plane and fatalities on the ground as well, this is one of India’s worst air disasters in its history.
Air travel is one of the safest means of mass transportation today and is getting safer all the time. Its safety record has improved so much over the decades that such accidents like this one are a real shock to community consciousness.
Although not perfect, India’s air safety record is also relatively good. Before today, the last fatal air crash was during the start of the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 and before that you have to go a full 10 years for the one before that.
Both the 2020 and 2010 crashes involved planes from Air India Express that were landing, while Thursday’s crash involved an Air India that was taking off. This was also the first fatal crash of an AI plan since Tata Group took control of the airline in 2023.
We still do not know the cause – it is far too early for that. It could be anything from a bird strike, pilot error to a mechanical issue with the aircraft. The nation needs to retain faith in the investigation process, which is also involving officials from the United Kingdom (where dozens of passengers were from and which was the destination of the flight) and the United States (where the Boeing aircraft was manufactured).
This is the first fatal crash of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner (a type of aeroplane that passed the milestone of 1 billion passengers carried recently) and could not come at a worse time for the manufacturer, which has been plagued by the fallout over two fatal crashes involving its 737 MAX plane a few years ago.
Boeing’s less than upstanding behaviour regarding the 737 MAX means that the company does not deserve the benefit of the doubt. It does not look good for the firm that an engineer inside Boeing claimed last year that the 787 has safety flaws; these accusations have been given prominence in India media since yesterday and should be investigated thoroughly.
The manufacturer could be completely innocent in the Ahmedabad disaster and, hopefully, investigators will be able to come to a conclusion regarding the cause of the crash. This should help make our skies safer as those in the industry learn lessons from the tragedy.
Still, the pain of those grieving is being keenly felt across India and beyond. There have been heart-wrenching stories to have emerged – from the death of the two stewardesses from opposing communities in Manipur, to the parents and their three children who relocating to the UK and to the man who was heading back to London after depositing his late wife’s ashes in an ancestral pond in Gujarat; his children must now cope with losing both parents in the span of a month.
These are painful stories and we owe it to them to find out the truth of the ill-fated AI 171.
