Context

• There is a cynical wisdom in Murphy’s Law: 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 tragic crash of Air India Flight AI171 on June 12, 2025, moments after its departure from Ahmedabad for London Gatwick, illustrates this law with devastating clarity.
• This catastrophe, claiming over 300 lives, including passengers and residents on the ground is not an isolated misfortune but the latest link in a long chain of systemic failures plaguing India’s aviation ecosystem.
• From institutional complacency and lack of accountability to technical oversights and regulatory violations, the AI171 disaster underscores the urgent need for a radical overhaul in aviation governance, safety, and professionalism.

The Root of the Problem

• Institutional Decay and Lack of Accountability
  • India’s aviation safety record has been marked by repeated tragedies, followed by bursts of outrage and investigations that rarely lead to meaningful reform.
  • The crash of AI171 comes after several high-profile accidents, Indian Airlines IC605 (1990), Alliance Air CD7412 (2000), Air India Express IX812 (2010), and IX1344 (2020), each of which prompted promises of change but delivered little.
  • The same officials and bureaucrats remain in their posts, despite a consistent downward slide in safety standards and pilot training protocols.
  • What is particularly damning is the entrenched culture of unaccountability.
• The Blame-Game
  • With each crash, blame is often narrowly focused on the flight crew, conveniently absolving senior officials in the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), and the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
  • This scapegoating shield systemic failures from scrutiny and reform and even judicial responses have been lacklustre.
  • In the wake of the Mangaluru crash in 2010, a public interest litigation citing compelling evidence of regulatory violations was dismissed by the Supreme Court, which inexplicably returned the case to the very Ministry implicated in the allegations.
• Misplaced Priorities and Regulatory Complicity
  • India’s regulatory bodies often appear more concerned with optics than outcomes.
  • The DGCA’s post-crash statement on AI171, for example, named the pilots, a violation of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) standards, which prohibit such disclosures even in final reports.
  • This act not only breached protocol but also revealed a deep-seated institutional tendency to deflect responsibility rather than introspect or reform.
  • The leadership of these agencies, often filled with bureaucrats or publicity seekers rather than aviation professionals, reflects misplaced priorities that compromise public safety.
  • Moreover, India's judicial and regulatory inertia starkly contrasts with the accountability seen in other countries.
  • The Pakistan Supreme Court, for instance, has shown greater resolve in holding aviation regulators to account.
  • This disparity further highlights the failure of India’s institutions to protect its citizens from preventable aviation disasters.

Technical Speculations and Missed Red Flags

• Technical Speculations
  • In the absence of a final investigation report, preliminary analyses including video evidence and survivor accounts, offer insight into possible causes of the AI171 crash.
  • Speculation ranges from flap misconfiguration to foreign object damage (FOD), with particular focus on bird strikes.
  • The Ahmedabad airport, known for bird hazards, showed visible signs of untrimmed grass, a key attractant during monsoon months.
  • This apparent negligence likely increased the risk of bird ingestion into the engines, potentially leading to compressor stalls and a catastrophic loss of thrust.
• Missed Red Flags
  • Additionally, observers noted that the aircraft’s landing gear remained extended throughout the ill-fated climb, a condition that would significantly increase drag and reduce lift, especially under compromised thrust conditions.
  • The crew may have been overwhelmed by a combination of engine malfunction and training dynamics, particularly if the co-pilot was undergoing line training.
  • In such high-stress scenarios, even basic flight configurations, such as gear retraction, can be overlooked with fatal consequences.
  • The situation is reminiscent of the Air France Concorde crash (AF4590) in 2000, where a seemingly minor object on the runway triggered a chain of failures.
  • The AI171 crash similarly raises the question of runway integrity and potential foreign object damage, which should be a primary focus of the ongoing investigation.

Questions on Urban Planning, Airport Safety, and Obstacle Management

• A broader issue raised by this tragedy is the unchecked urban development around airports.
• The AI171 crash involved a collision with a multi-storied building near the airport’s take-off funnel.
• The presence of such a tall structure so close to a critical flight path raises questions about the issuance of construction clearances and the influence of political pressures on regulatory decisions.
• As aviation continues to grow in India, managing urban encroachment near airports must become a central focus of safety protocols.

Will We Learn from This?

• Despite decades of crashes and investigations, the Indian aviation system has failed to institutionalise lessons learned.
• International bodies such as the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) have joined the AI171 probe.
• Their presence may lend the investigation much-needed independence and technical rigor, but their findings must be met with a willingness, and capacity, for reform in India.
• Ultimately, the question is not whether aviation authorities will investigate this crash thoroughly, but whether they will act on the findings with the seriousness they demand.
• Without fundamental changes in training standards, safety culture, regulatory integrity, and public accountability, the crash of AI171 will fade into history like the ones before it, mourned, analysed, but not heeded.

Conclusion

• The Air India AI171 crash is more than a tragic accident; it is a manifestation of systemic dysfunction.
• It calls into question not just what went wrong in one cockpit, but what has been going wrong for decades at the highest levels of aviation governance.
• Unless this disaster prompts sweeping reforms, in personnel appointments, regulatory rigor, airport maintenance, and judicial accountability, Murphy’s Law will continue to write the future of Indian aviation, one preventable tragedy at a time.