By R. Suryamurthy
The Air India Flight 171 crash in Ahmedabad this June, killing 241 people, should have been a line in the sand. A Boeing 787 — the pride of modern aviation — falling out of the sky seconds after take-off was not just a technical failure. It was the clearest possible warning that India’s aviation safety system is broken.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture, in its latest report, has said what experts have long whispered: India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is toothless, conflicted, and chronically late. Its reports are published years after crashes, its recommendations are rarely enforced, and its very structure guarantees that systemic failures remain buried. In the committee’s words, “the inability to quickly and conclusively probe accidents undermines both safety culture and passenger trust.”
It should not require a parliamentary report to establish that the agency investigating crashes cannot also be beholden to the regulator under scrutiny. Yet in India that conflict of interest is routine. The AAIB is staffed largely by officers seconded from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The same regulator accused of oversight lapses supplies the very people charged with investigating those lapses.
The committee did not mince words. It called this arrangement “untenable” and warned that such a structure compromises the impartiality of probes from the outset. That is a diplomatic way of saying what passengers already fear: the watchdog is investigating itself.
Ahmedabad 2025 is not an isolated horror. In Patna (2000), investigators cited poor training and outdated navigation facilities. In Mangaluru (2010), pilot fatigue and poor runway design killed 158 people. In Ahmedabad (2025), cockpit confusion and regulatory oversight are again under question.
Three crashes, spanning a quarter century, yet the same themes resurface like a grim déjà vu. The committee’s report underscores this cycle, noting that “India has a tendency to issue recommendations but not ensure their enforcement.” Each crash should have been a watershed. Instead, systemic weaknesses — weak oversight, non-binding recommendations, lack of technical expertise — keep resurfacing, as if on an endless loop.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) sets a 12-month deadline for final reports. India routinely blows past it. By the time findings emerge, the outrage has cooled, families are exhausted, and airlines have resumed expansion.
The committee’s observation is stark: “Recommendations issued by the AAIB are largely advisory in nature, without binding effect.” Unlike in the U.S. or Europe, where accident probes routinely force regulatory overhaul, Indian reports too often gather dust.
The Mangaluru crash report urged fatigue management reforms; they were watered down. Char Dham helicopter crashes prompted advisories; they were ignored. After AI-171, unless the committee’s call for statutory timelines and binding recommendations is heeded, history will repeat itself yet again.
The committee is equally scathing about India’s helicopter operations, particularly in the Himalayas. Crashes in Uttarakhand have become routine, caused by predictable factors — overloaded helipads, untrained pilots, bad weather. Yet mountain flying certification is not mandatory, and oversight is split between the Centre and state bodies like UCADA, none of which is equipped to regulate.
The report captures the dysfunction bluntly: “The ambiguity between central and state oversight has created a vacuum in accountability.” In plain terms, when everyone is responsible, no one is.
India’s civil aviation sector is expanding at breakneck pace — 153 million domestic passengers in FY24, more than 1,000 new aircraft on order. Ministers hail this as proof of economic dynamism. But the committee’s warning cuts through the boosterism: “Rapid expansion without corresponding improvements in safety oversight poses unacceptable risks.”
Growth without safety is not progress. It is hubris. It is building a house faster than you can lay the foundation, then hoping it will not collapse.
To its credit, the committee does not just diagnose the rot. It prescribes reforms that India has resisted for decades: “Final reports must be completed within statutory timelines”, “The AAIB must be structurally independent of the DGCA”, “Safety recommendations must be made binding”, “There must be transparent public disclosure and monitoring of follow-up action”, and “Specialised training for investigators in avionics, human factors, and crash forensics is essential.”
These are not revolutionary ideas. They are global baseline practice. That they appear bold in India only shows how far behind the country is.
Why has nothing changed? Because it is easier not to. Airlines resist costly safety rules. Regulators are stretched thin and politically instructed to prioritise growth. Parliament itself wakes up only after disaster.
The committee has done its part by putting the failures in writing. But as its own report warns, “Without enforcement, safety reforms remain token gestures.” If its recommendations are shelved, as they were after Patna and Mangaluru, then Ahmedabad will join the archive of avoidable tragedies.
Air India Flight 171 should not be remembered as just another crash. It should be remembered as the moment Parliament finally admitted that India’s skies are not safe enough, and that the state has failed in its most basic duty — to protect lives.
The dead of Ahmedabad are not the price of progress. They are the cost of negligence. And unless the government acts on the committee’s report with urgency and courage, India will keep paying that cost, in fire, steel, and human lives. (IPA Service)
