Personnel from India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) investigating Thursday’s deadly Air India crash in Ahmedabad, one of the country’s worst aviation accidents in decades, are being joined by experts from US National Transportation Safety Board, engine maker General Electric, plane maker Boeing and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
In a key breakthrough, the authorities said the plane’s Flight Data Recorder (FDR), or black box (it actually is orange in colour), was recovered from a rooftop at the crash site. “This marks an important step forward in the investigation. This will significantly aid the inquiry into the incident,” Indian Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu posted Friday on X.
Its analysis, along with the recordings of the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) will offer clues about the cause of the accident that killed 270 people, including around 20 people on the ground as the London-bound Boeing Dreamliner plane crashed into a medical college hostel.
The FDR will reveal information about the engine and control settings. This should show if there was a loss of engine power or lift after takeoff and allow a preliminary determination of the likely cause for the crash. Investigators are also looking at whether wing flaps were set correctly, whether the engine lost power, whether alarms were going off inside the cockpit and whether the plane’s crew correctly inputted information about the hot temperature outside and the weight of the fuel and passengers, since mistakes in the data could result in the wing flaps being set incorrectly. Weather could not have been a factor, as it was a clear, sunny day.
Lucky escape
The (British-Indian) passenger in seat 11A on Air India flight 171 was the only one to walk out of the burning rubble, with minor injuries. He described his luck and ordeal to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who met him personally in hospital on Friday.
Viswashkumar Ramesh told the Premier and reporters that he still can’t believe he is alive. He said the aircraft seemed to become stuck immediately after takeoff. He said the lights then came on, and right after that, it accelerated but seemed unable to gain height before it crashed.
“The side of the plane I was in landed on the ground, and I could see that there was space outside the aircraft, so when my door broke, I tried to escape through it and I did,” Ramesh said.
“The opposite side of the aircraft was blocked by the building wall, so nobody could have come out of there.” Ramesh’s brother, who was in a different seat, died in the crash. His escape has again ignited a debate on the “safest seat in an aircraft”.
“We are all devastated by the air tragedy in Ahmedabad. The loss of so many lives in such a sudden and heartbreaking manner is beyond words,” Modi said on social media after visiting the site and the hospital, where he also talked to survivors from the medical hostel.
Separately, the country’s civil aviation regulator has ordered Air India, now owned by Tata, to conduct additional inspections of its Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 Dreamliners equipped with General Electric’s GEnx engines. That includes checks of the fuel parametres, cabin air compressor, engine control system, hydraulic system and takeoff parameters, the order said. Several other airlines operating these aircraft are also expected to follow suit.
Boeing has faced enhanced scrutiny after two 737 Max planes crashed almost immediately after take-off a couple of years ago, though the AI crash is the first serious accident involving the 787 type. Investigators have identified serious quality control flaws at Boeing’s main assembly plant in the US.
Thursday’s Air India crash involved a 12-year-old Boeing 787. According to experts, there are currently around 1,200 of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft worldwide and this was the first deadly crash in 16 years of operation.
Over 120,000 flights
Despite the recent flurry of accidents and crashes, flying is actually the safest mode of transport. There are over 120,000 flights a day globally which carry around 12 million passengers. At any given time, there are over 12,000 planes in the air, excluding military planes, helicopters and recreational aircraft.
Today’s modern airliners or airframes such as the Boeing Dreamliner 787 family and the Airbus A350 family are much more structurally sound than their counterparts from just 30 years ago. Advances in materials, engines, avionics, communications, security and safety measures have made flying safer than ever before.
Yet, plane crashes such as the AI 171 do happen occasionally due to a variety of factors including pilot error, bad weather, mechanical faults, bird strikes and even “physical and technical external interference” – a reference to the Surface to Air (SAM) missile attacks that brought down Malaysia Airlines MH14 (2014) and Azerbaijan Airlines 8243 (2024).
On-board and mid-air explosions (bomb attacks) in planes are now extremely rare, thanks to modern security and scanning technology and stringent security adopted following the harrowing events of 9/11. Indeed, planes rarely fall out of the sky – most, if not all, aviation accidents occur when planes take off or land as AI 171 also proved.
Behind every crash lies a series of missteps. It could be something very simple such as a loosened nut in a vital component or a wrong decision taken by the pilot or the co-pilot. But if you have watched NatGeo or Discovery shows such as Air Crash Investigation (ACI), every air accident is meticulously investigated, with the debris combed piece by piece.
Aviation safety
The proper training of crew is the key to aviation safety. Pilots must complete refresher courses on simulators and real aircraft and the flight attendants must always be prepared to evacuate passengers from a fully packed plane in just 90 seconds. There are real-life examples for this – on August 3, 2016, Emirates flight number EK521 crashed upon landing at Dubai International Airport (DXB). All 300 passengers and crew onboard the aircraft survived the initial crash and were evacuated in just 90 seconds. The plane burst into flames shortly afterwards. This shows that all passengers can be saved even in a “hull-loss” event, if the crew acts quickly. However, as the Azerbaijan Airlines incident shows, war and other such factors can negatively impact aviation safety. Airlines have been cautiously avoiding the airspace around the two major theatres of war – Ukraine and Gaza/Israel/Lebanon, using more fuel for the detours.
Outside of conflict zones, drones flown by enthusiasts around major airports pose a severe threat to airlines, along with laser lights that can temporarily blind pilots. Bird strikes are another common factor – one was behind the famous “Miracle on the Hudson” in which all passengers onboard a US Airways flight that had ditched in the Hudson River, New York, were saved by ferries that were passing by. Bird strikes hardly give time for the pilots to act, with impact with the ground or water just seconds away.
Aviation analysts are also worried by the increasing number of incidents involving severe turbulence, especially “Clear Air Turbulence” (CAT) which can strike without warning. Scientists believe that this is also a side effect of Climate Change and will rise in frequency over the coming years. They are also evolving various methods to track areas where turbulence may develop and warn flight crews in advance. The US airline Delta already has such a sophisticated real-time turbulence and weather warning system.
Misunderstandings
Aviation experts are also worried about incidents where the pilots misunderstand or misread instructions given by Air Traffic Control (ATC) towers. Even though English is the universal language of aviation, not all ATC personnel and pilots are fluent in it. This could lead to misunderstandings that may even have fatal consequences.
In the 2025 Potomac River mid-air collision, American Eagle Flight 5342, a Bombardier CRJ700 operated by PSA Airlines, collided with a US Army Sikorsky UH-60L over the Potomac River, killing all 64 people onboard the CRJ700 and all 3 aboard the UH-60L. Experts say that misunderstood ATC directions could have played a part in this accident.
Planes also come within touching distance of each other near airports in spite of a raft of passive and active safety measures deployed both on the ground and in the air. Planes are vertically and horizontally separated at all stages of the flight – taking off, cruising and landing. These distances can vary, but 500-1000 metres is generally regarded as a safe distance. Today’s planes have access to many Navigational Aids (NAVAIDS) in aircraft and on the ground that help them maintain a safe distance from each other.
Nevertheless, not all airports are equipped with advanced NAVIADS systems. Many smaller airports around the world lack ILS (Instrument Landing Systems), whereby the pilots can land based on instrument data alone, without relying on visual cues usually called Visual Flight Rules (VFR). Exclusively using the latter could lead to serious accidents and crashes especially in bad weather.
Sometimes airport design itself may lead to or cause accidents. Airports with multiple runways and taxiways could confuse pilots, especially those who are new to such airports. In fact, there are a few airports which do not allow “new” pilots to land.
A plane takes off every second somewhere in the world. Despite the record numbers of flights in 2024-2025, there were only around 10 serious air crashes. Aviation remains the safest mode of transport and still the best and fastest way to reach distant lands. There is no doubt that plane makers, aviation regulators and the airline industry will learn lessons from the latest crash and further refine safety measures.
