AI 171 Crash: 'Families Of 260 People Are Waiting For Answers'

'A lot of people feel there is pressure on the AAIB not to go against Boeing or GE -- both enormous American companies.'
'If the AAIB implicates Boeing or GE, it will impact their sales. If their sales are impacted, jobs are lost in the United States. No government would willingly do that.'

Beyond the complex telemetry and mechanical failure theories of the Air India AI171 disaster lies a deeper, systemic crisis within India's aviation oversight infrastructure. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) faces severe scrutiny over its lack of specialised expertise, structural independence flaws, and alleged susceptibility to pressures from the US aviation industry.

In the concluding segment of this Rediff interview, Captain Sanjay Karve exposes the institutional deficiencies delaying the final report and explains why the global credibility of India's aviation safety framework hangs in the balance.

• Part 1 of the interview: AI 171 Crash: 'Americans Would Prefer It To Be Pilot Error'

What's the biggest flaw in the investigation, you'd say -- the lack of an active 787 pilot on the board?

Yes. And when I say 'qualified 787,' I don't mean someone who has an endorsement on paper. I mean someone who has been actively flying or actively maintaining that aircraft.

What happens in the DGCA is that when a new aircraft is inducted, the regulations require that someone from the regulator also gets trained on that type -- but their knowledge is restricted to what they learnt during training, not real-world operations.

Let me put it plainly. Suppose both of us go to Boeing's factory in Seattle for a 787 training programme -- me as a DGCA engineer, you as a line pilot. We come back. Five years pass.

You have been flying the aircraft regularly, maintaining it, encountering real-time situations with the engines, the avionics, everything. My knowledge is limited to what the airline reports to me and what I was taught in that course. There is simply no way I can compete with you.

Think of it this way: you've done your MBBS, your MS in surgery, stood first in your batch. But you haven't touched a scalpel for fifteen years. Legally, you are a qualified surgeon. In reality, your competence as a practising surgeon is zero. The AAIB's problem is exactly that.

There is no one in that committee who has been actively flying or maintaining the 787. I've also heard, through the grapevine -- I can't confirm it -- that the pilot who was co-opted onto the board after considerable pressure has since resigned, reportedly saying he did not want to be part of the inquiry given the manner in which it was being conducted.

The Federation of Indian Pilots has publicly accused the AAIB of lacking transparency and questioned whether critical Boeing 787 fault codes were fully decoded. How serious are these allegations?

Very serious. The Federation of Indian Pilots is a professional body of people who have been regularly flying for 25 to 30 years. This isn't someone who passed an examination and moved into an administrative position. These are pilots with deep theoretical knowledge and enormous practical experience. Their concerns deserve to be taken seriously.

The AAIB should, ideally, come out and say: Look, the investigation is taking time because there are too many agencies involved, and we need comprehensive data from all of them. That would be honest and it would help manage expectations. But beyond that, the political situation in this country is not helping.

India and the United States are not on the best of terms right now. A lot of people feel there is pressure on the AAIB not to go against Boeing or GE -- both enormous American companies. If the AAIB implicates Boeing or GE, it will impact their sales. If their sales are impacted, jobs are lost in the United States. No government would willingly do that.

So people are wondering: Is the AAIB buckling under political pressure? Why, for instance, the reluctance to involve EASA -- the European Aviation Safety Agency? There is someone from the FAA, as is mandated, because it is an American-manufactured aircraft. But why not EASA? By delaying the report and staying silent about the reasons, the AAIB is not helping itself.

If you were on the investigation panel today, what is the one piece of evidence you would most want to see?

I'd actually start from the very beginning -- the load and trim sheet. Was it correctly calculated? Was the right weight inputted into the system? And importantly, it was a hot day in Ahmedabad. Incorrect weight inputs would have sent wrong parameters to the flight management system.

Then there are the reports from passengers on the same aircraft's earlier Delhi-Ahmedabad sector, who reportedly experienced flickering lights and problems with the air conditioning on that flight. If they did -- and if that has been documented -- it suggests there may have been something wrong with the electrical systems or sub-systems, and that it manifested more catastrophically on the Ahmedabad-London sector.

All of this needs to be factored in. A thorough study of the electrical systems architecture, and the interface between GE's FADEC and the aircraft's electrical system, is essential. There may be a serious underlying problem that could repeat itself -- not necessarily tomorrow, but perhaps in five years.

We are talking about lives. Over two hundred people lost their lives. Someone might argue: Yes, but if this becomes public, thousands of people will lose their jobs at GE and Boeing. But losing a life and losing a job are two very different things.

The AAIB's staffing and independence is another concern you've raised. How serious a structural problem is that?

Very serious, and it goes beyond just the 787 expertise. The AAIB is manned by people on deputation from the DGCA. Let us be honest -- if I have been seconded from the DGCA to the AAIB, my loyalty, at a human level, remains with the DGCA. You can say, very nobly, 'No, no, we are completely impartial.' We are all human beings.

There was actually a time when flight operations inspectors and engineers were seconded from the airlines -- Air India, Jet Airways, IndiGo -- to the DGCA for three to five years. And there was a broad consensus within aviation that these people tended to favour their parent organisations.

If I'm going to work at the DGCA for five years and then return to my parent airline, I'm not going to want to offend my employer. So they stopped that arrangement. The same logic applies, in reverse, to AAIB.

Also -- and this is something the government has the power to fix -- the DG of the AAIB, or the civil aviation secretary, has adequate authority to co-opt additional members. There was nothing stopping them from bringing in a qualified 787 captain and a qualified 787 avionics and mechanical engineer right at the outset.

If they had said, openly, 'In the interest of safety and finding the truth, we want to co-opt these individuals,' nobody would have objected. But they didn't. And now they're stuck.

And there is the recent high court order about the pilot's licence suspension as well.

Yes, and it is deeply troubling. The high court struck down the licence suspension of a pilot -- Jeetendra Krishna Varma -- saying he was never given a chance to defend himself. You cannot arbitrarily cancel a pilot's licence on those terms.

Have you proven criminal negligence? Have you established it through due process? Even if criminal negligence is alleged, basic natural justice requires that the person be given a chance to respond.

The DGCA and the ministry of civil aviation have not commented. Their answer is that they need to figure out who initiated that action fifteen years ago. That is not an answer. That is evasion.

All of this adds up. There is no transparency with the AAIB or the DGCA, and every new revelation makes the situation worse.

The preliminary report pointed fingers, the public reacted strongly, the authorities backtracked -- and now everyone is watching to see what comes next.

India's credibility in world aviation is at stake. The moment you cast doubt on your regulator, it is like saying you don't trust the Supreme Court. It undermines the entire framework. That is what is at the heart of this delay -- and the AAIB has, unfortunately, got itself into this corner largely by its own actions.

What would you expect from the AAIB?

I genuinely sympathise with the AAIB members. They are in a very difficult position, and some of it was not of their making. But I hope they come out with something -- if not the final report, at least a press release that says: These are the challenges we face, this is why it is taking time, and this is where we are in the process.

There is no harm in telling people that. No harm at all. Being transparent is what is needed right now. The families of 260 people are waiting for answers.

A man in the UK lost his wife and child on that flight -- he was on a dependent visa, and now he's fighting a case on humanitarian grounds to remain in the country. These are real human consequences. The investigation owes them, and the country, a straight answer.

• The Tragic AI 171 Crash