At Mumbai
| Photo Credit: AFP
There is a version of Murphy’s law which says that “if there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong”.
The fiery end to Air India flight AI171 at Ahmedabad, Gujarat, on June 12, 2025, just after its departure for London Gatwick, is a rude wake-up call — one that has been sounded for several years. But the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), the judiciary, the statutory body the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and all airlines in India have been turning a blind eye to the need to ensuring stringent training and safety standards. Sound bites such as the one about India being the fastest growing aviation system have all come to nothing due to years of corruption and political manipulation in the system. A major failure in India is the complete lack of accountability. Other than pilots being blamed, no one else has been held accountable. The rot starts at the top of the aviation ladder.
Downward slide
After every major crash, beginning with the Indian Airlines Airbus A320 crash (IC605) in Bangalore on February 14, 1990, followed by an Alliance Air Boeing 737 crash (CD7412) at Patna on July 17, 2000, an Air India Express crash (IX-812) in Mangaluru on May 22, 2010 and another Air India Express crash at Kozhikode (IX1344) on August 7, 2020, the aviation authorities have been lulled into complacency. The crash of the Air India Boeing 787 at Ahmedabad is another accident in the chain. Meanwhile, the same set of people continue to be at their desks even as safety and training have been on a downward slide over the years. The lack of accountability and the inaction have cost the lives of hundreds of passengers.
Take the case of the Union Minister of Civil Aviation. After every crash, the first statement made is to defend the safety standards of airports in India even when there are blatant violations of International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards. It is no exaggeration to say that accident investigators are picked and chosen on the basis of who will toe the line and place the blame squarely on pilots. There have been violations in the Ahmedabad accident. We have had the DGCA issuing a statement that is in clear violation of ICAO standards — naming the pilots who were involved in the crash. No other country would mention the names of the crew even in the final report. We need professionals to head the DGCA and the AAI, and not bureaucrats and persons who seek publicity in these crucial organisations and positions. India has one of the weakest judicial systems as far as aviation safety is concerned. After the crash in Mangaluru, a public interest litigation was filed that listed irrefutable data and safety violations by the MoCA, the DGCA, the AAI and Air India. A Bench of the Supreme Court of India swept this aside by passing on the case file to the MoCA to check whether this was a valid case.
This was a move that hammered the last nail in the coffin of aviation safety. Apart from the last crash, at Kozhikode, there have been so many accidents and serious incidents, but things carry on without any accountability. The loss of over 300 lives in Ahmedabad (the passengers and also local residents) should shake the people in the system who are in slumber. Even the Pakistan Supreme Court comes down very hard on its aviation regulator and airlines.
Reading the visual evidence
The video recordings and images of the Ahmedabad accident that are out on social media are the only sources of information available at this moment. The take-off captured on CCTV at Ahmedabad airport has led to more information. There is much speculation about the flaps of the aircraft not having been configured for take-off. All modern Boeing aircraft, which includes the Boeing 787, have take-off configuration warnings and no pilot would attempt a take-off if all conditions are not met. There is also much commentary floating around about this flight having taken off from an intersection. Data from a leading flight data provider clearly shows that the crew used the full length of the runway, from the beginning. The initial part of the CCTV footage from the airport clearly shows the growth of a fair amount of grass along the sides of the runway. The southwest monsoon has arrived, but monsoon preparation mandates the mowing of grass at airports to less than three inches before the rains arrive. This will aid in reducing insects and worms which would otherwise attract bird life. Ahmedabad has a history of bird menace in the airport area.
The initial take-off acceleration of the Air India plane appears normal until lift off. Going by the statement of the sole passenger/survivor and also a video grab quoting a person during a television interview, a loud thud has been reported about 30 seconds after lift off. It is quite possible that birds flying close to the runway in search of worms and insects may have got sucked into the powerful aircraft engines and caused a compressor stall at the point of rotation. The lift off and initial climb appear shallow before the nose is raised high. But the climb rate is very shallow due to possible partial thrust loss as a result of bird ingestion in both engines. Thereafter, the nose is raised and the aircraft appears to descend slowly with a high nose angle. The aircraft appears to have stalled and the impact on the building with the tail section intact, points to a stall. The Digital Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder will give us the clear picture.
The second reason that may have caused the partial thrust loss could be Foreign Object Damage such as what happened to the Air France Concorde flight (AF4590) on July 25, 2000 while on a flight from Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris to New York. The crash was caused by a metallic strip that had fallen from a flight that had taken off minutes earlier. It was lying on the runway and punctured the wheel of the Air France plane. Fragments from the exploding tyre hit the fuel tank, causing a leak and fire. All lives were lost with some fatalities on the ground. It would be worthwhile checking whether something similar happened to the Air India flight. The most intriguing part of the video is of the aircraft’s landing gear extended throughout the climb till the final moments. If there had been bird ingestions in both engines, the loud noise may have been due to a compressor stall, which could have created what is called the startle effect.
The DGCA’s statement which mentions the names of the pilots and their experience levels, also says that the captain was line training captain. Was this a training flight? And was the copilot at the controls? In such a situation, the change of controls and the partial loss of thrust could have been overwhelming and may have been a reason for the crew to miss landing gear retraction. If the gears had been raised, the drag would have not been present and the aircraft would have had a better climb gradient to clear the obstacles on the ground.
Focus areas in the investigation
With global aviation bodies such as the National Transportation Safety Board from the United States, and the Air Accidents Investigation Branch from the United Kingdom now a part of the crash investigation, the officials should also look at obstacles in the take-off funnel. The building which the aircraft crashed into was multi-storied (one plus five floors, according to a report). Having a seventy-foot structure so close to the take-off path should be investigated. This should also be a lesson for authorities in India not to issue no objection certifications for construction activity by caving in to political pressure.
Whether we will learn lessons from this tragedy is the big question.
Captain A. (Mohan) Ranganathan is a former airline instructor pilot and aviation safety adviser. He is also a former member of the Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Council (CASAC), India
Published – June 14, 2025 12:16 am IST