Ahmedabad plane crash: Pilots' body FIP seeks B787 simulator tests to verify certain aspects in probe

(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated July 21, 2025)

Just 10 days before the London Gatwick-bound Air India flight AI 171 crashed within seconds of takeoff in Ahmedabad on June 12, the airline had been busy staging its most high-profile media blitz since privatisation. On the sidelines of the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) annual general meeting in New Delhi from June 1-3, Air India’s MD and CEO Campbell Wilson, flanked by the company’s senior brass, met over 30 top aviation writers and editors from India and abroad. An upbeat Wilson spoke of how, three years after the Tata Group took over the beleaguered public sector airline, it had moved from a phase of stabilisation to one of sufficiency—finally having enough aircraft to fuel its ambitions. The next goal: sharpening operational efficiency. The makeover programme titled ‘Vihaan.AI’, which was unveiled in September 2022 and was slated to transform Air India as “a global airline with an Indian heart” in five years, was said to have reached a very satisfying halfway mark.

That image came undone with the crash of Air India’s Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner—one of the deadliest in India’s aviation history, killing 241 of the 242 people on board and at least 19 on the ground. The disaster thrust the Tata-owned airline into the harsh glare of media and regulatory scrutiny. In its immediate aftermath, the airline cancelled 83 international flights within a week and then announced a 15 per cent reduction in its widebody international operations through mid-July. Even as a high-powered, multi-agency committee, chaired by the Union home secretary, was given three months to probe the crash and suggest reforms, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on June 20 pulled up Air India for repeated violations of crew duty norms and ordered the removal of three senior officials. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau is learnt to have submitted its preliminary crash report to the Centre, though the findings remain undisclosed.

So, how did things come to this sorry pass? That too for a conglomerate that had an emotional stake in trying to reclaim its place in the sky? After all, Air India was born in 1932 as Tata Airlines, India’s first aviation company. Founded by the iconic J.R.D. Tata, the group had lost control of the airline upon its nationalisation in June 1953. So when the Tatas formally re-acquired Air India nearly 70 years later—on January 27, 2022—it marked the end not only of a long phase of strategic disinvestment, one of the big chapters of India’s reforms era. It also cued an arrival of corporate efficiencies, borne aloft on the Tata Group’s ambition to carve out a big stake in the aviation business.

It wasn’t an easy task. The acquisition came at a price of Rs 18,000 crore, at a time when the national carrier—a dominant player in India’s international and domestic sectors—was saddled with Rs 61,562 crore in debt and had reported losses of Rs 9,591 crore in FY22. Under the terms of the deal, the Tata Group took on Rs 15,300 crore of the debt; the remaining Rs 46,000 crore was transferred to AI Asset Holding Limited, a special purpose vehicle set up by the government.

BIG AMBITION, BIGGER WOES

The Tata Group’s return to aviation, however, had begun years earlier. In 2014, it entered into a joint venture with Malaysia’s AirAsia Berhad to launch AirAsia India, with the Tatas holding a 51 per cent stake. In 2022, they took full control of the budget carrier and renamed it AIX Connect, ahead of its merger with Air India Express in October 2024. Vistara—another Tata venture, this time with Singapore Airlines—took off in 2015 and was merged with Air India in November 2024. Post merger, the Tata Group holds a 74.9 per cent stake in the combined entity, with Singapore Airlines owning the rest.

The Tatas were indeed betting big on aviation. For good reason. Indian civil aviation was booming like never before. The country’s air passenger traffic—domestic and international—has more than doubled in the past decade, reaching 376 million in FY24, as per official data. This has made India the third largest aviation market in the world, after the US and China. Government projections, as well as forecasts by independent agencies, estimate a 7-10 per cent annual growth in domestic air traffic and 15-20 per cent in international traffic over the next few years. Wilson, in a media interview days before the crash, had talked of Air India’s plans to “connect to far-flung destinations in the world”. The crash has put all that on hold. The Tatas have multiple challenges to negotiate before they can resume the airline’s onward journey.

CHALLENGE 1: SHEDDING ITS BAGGAGE

Few dispute that the Tatas inherited an airline burdened with legacy issues. Investment neglect, frequent labour unrest from a bloated workforce and gargantuan losses had plagued Air India for decades. A turnaround was never going to be easy for the Tatas. “T…