Air India crash raises a big question: Should every plane have a camera in the cockpit to catch what audio can't?
Willie Walsh, head of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and a former pilot himself, publicly supported the idea during a conference in Singapore. 'Based on what little we know now, it's quite possible that a video recording, in addition to the voice recording, would significantly assist investigators,' Walsh said, referencing the need to better understand mental health issues involved in such incidents.
What happened on flight 171?
A preliminary report from India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) suggests that one of the pilots may have deliberately cut off fuel supply to the engines of the Boeing 787 shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad. This left the aircraft in an uncontrollable state, ultimately leading to the deaths of 241 passengers and crew, along with 19 people on the ground.
Experts say that had cockpit video footage been available, investigators could have quickly confirmed what happened and why. Instead, key questions remain unanswered.
Video recorders in other incidents
Supporters of cockpit video highlight examples where such footage proved vital. In 2023, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) used video evidence from a Robinson R66 helicopter crash to determine the cause. The video showed that the pilot, who died in the crash, had been distracted while flying — using a mobile phone and eating during flight. The ATSB called the footage 'invaluable' and praised Robinson Helicopters for factory-installing cameras.
Following that investigation, ATSB urged more manufacturers and operators to consider camera installations for safety purposes.
Not the first time this has been proposed
The push for cockpit video recorders dates back decades. In 2000, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) made a formal recommendation after the 1999 crash of EgyptAir Flight 990. Investigators concluded that the first officer had intentionally caused the crash, killing all 217 on board. Then-NTSB Chairman Jim Hall pressed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to require cockpit cameras.
Despite strong arguments for safety, many pilots have expressed concern over constant surveillance. Aviation safety expert Anthony Brickhouse acknowledged this, saying, 'Video on Air India flight 171 would have answered lots of questions.' Still, he emphasized that privacy should not outweigh safety when lives are at stake.
The case for safety over privacy
Air safety expert and retired pilot John Nance echoed this sentiment. 'In the balance between privacy and safety, the scale tips toward safety, unequivocally,' he said. 'Protecting the flying public is a sacred obligation.'
The conversation around cockpit cameras may be uncomfortable for some, but with repeated tragedies and open investigations, industry leaders may soon be forced to make a final call.
As past and present crashes resurface, the industry faces pressure to act — will safety outweigh privacy in future cockpit policy?
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First Post
an hour ago
- First Post
Air India crash: How to spin-doctor and peddle narratives, the Western way
Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore used to terrorise villainous Western media by suing them in his courts. They learned to toe the line read more There has been a virtual masterclass lately in the creation and dissemination of biased narratives. Not only in the case of the ill-fated Air India 171 (Boeing 787, June 12, 2025) that crashed, but also in some other, unrelated instances. The age-old practices of 'truth by repeated assertion' and 'dubious circular references' as well as 'strategic silence' have all been deployed in full force. The bottom line with the Air India flight: there is reasonable doubt about whether there was mechanical/software failure and/or sabotage or possible pilot error. Any or all of these caused both engines to turn off in flight. But the way the spin-doctors have spun it, it is now 'official' that the commanding pilot was suicidal and turned off the fuel switch. Boeing, the plane maker, and General Electric, the engine maker, are blameless. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD This is, alas, not surprising. It is in the interests of Western MNCs to limit reputational damage and monetary loss related to their products. They do massive marketing by unleashing their PR agencies. We also saw how they protect themselves in other instances. A leaked Pfizer contract for their Covid vaccine insisted that if anything happened, it was the user's problem, not Pfizer's: there was no indemnity. Incidentally, a report on July 19 said that the Pfizer Covid vaccine can lead to severe vision problems. Oh, sorry, no indemnity. What is deplorable in the Air India case is that the AAIB, the Indian entity investigating the disaster, chose to release a half-baked preliminary report with enough ambiguity that a case could be (and definitely was) built up against the poor dead pilots. Any marketing person could have read the report and told them that it would be used to blame the pilots and absolve the manufacturers. Besides, the AAIB report was released late night on a Friday, India time, which meant that the Western media had all of one working day to do the spin-doctoring, which they did with remarkable gusto. Meanwhile, the Indian media slept. Whose decision was this? Clearly, Indian babus need a remedial course in public relations if this was mere incompetence. Of course, if it was intentional, that would be even worse. There is a pattern. In earlier air accidents, such as the Jeju Air crash involving a Boeing 737-800 in South Korea in December, the pilots were blamed. In accidents involving Lion Air (Boeing 737 Max 8, 2018), China Airlines (737-200, 1989), Flydubai (737-800, 2016), ditto. I am beginning to believe that a lot of Asian pilots are poorly trained and/or suicidal. Ditto with the F-35 that fell into the ocean off Japan. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Truth by repeated assertion is a powerful force for gaslighting the gullible. I wonder what excuses we'll hear about the Delta Airlines Boeing 767 whose engine caught fire in the air after take-off from LAX on July 20. The pilots didn't die, so they will speak up. Besides, they were Westerners. I am eagerly awaiting the spin on this. I also noticed with grim amusement how the BBC, WSJ, Bloomberg, and Reuters, and so on were busy quoting each other to validate their assertions. This is a standard tactic that India's 'distorians' (see Utpal Kumar's powerful book Eminent Distorians) have perfected: B will quote third-hand hearsay from A, then C will quote B, D will quote C, and before you know it, the hearsay has become the truth. But if you wind it back from D to C to B to A it becomes, 'I hear someone told someone that xyz happened.' Out of thin air, then. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD There is also the lovely tactic of strategic silence. It has been used to un-person people who ask inconvenient questions. It has also been used to defenestrate inconvenient news. Just days ago, under the Deep State-installed new regime in Syria, hundreds of minority Druze were brutally massacred. There was video on X of armed men in uniform forcing Druze men to jump off tall buildings, and desecrating their shrines. Similarly, there is a brutal reign of terror, rape, murder, and thuggery against Hindus, Buddhists, and others under the Deep State-blessed regime of Mohammed Yunus in Bangladesh: a clear genocide. Neither Syria nor Bangladesh gets any headlines. There are no loud human-rights protests as in the case of Gaza. This is not news. It is un-news. 'Manufacturing Consent' all the way. India is particularly vulnerable to this gaslighting because Indians consume a lot of English-language 'news.' Scholars have long noted how the US public has been maintained in a state of ignorance so they could be easily manipulated. The same is true of the Indian middle class. So, there is yet another reason to do less in English. Fooling, say, the Chinese or Japanese public is a lot more difficult. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The fact is that even though Indians may be literate in English, they do not understand the context and the subtext of what is fed to them by the likes of The Economist, NPR, The Financial Times, The New York Times, etc. The best way I can explain this is the 100+5 analogy in the Mahabharata: they may fight with each other on domestic matters, but Anglosphere and Deep State are in cahoots when it comes to international matters. Things are both getting better and getting worse. On the one hand, social media and its imprint on generative AI mean that it is ever easier to propagate fake news (in addition to deepfake audio and video, of course). On the other hand, despite the problem of charlatans and paid agents provocateurs getting lots of eyeballs, the large number of Indians on social media may push back against the worst kinds of blood libel against India and Indians, of which there's plenty these days, often created by bots from 'friendly' countries. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD This is a serious matter indeed. One solution is to do a version of the Great Chinese Firewall and ban wholesale the worst offenders. Indeed, a few of the vilest handles have been ejected from X. However, the pusillanimity with which notorious Pakistani handles were unbanned, then re-banned after outrage, shows there's something rotten in the Information Ministry. Almost exactly the same as the unbanning of Pakistani cricketers, then rebanning after outrage. Is there anybody in charge? Information warfare is insidious. Going back to the Air India case, I think the families of the maligned pilots should sue for gigantic sums for libel and defamation. The sad state of the Indian judiciary may mean that, unfortunately, this will not go far. However, there is precedent: Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore used to terrorise villainous Western media by suing them in his courts. They learned to toe the line. If this tactic does not work, India should eject the hostile media. The Indian market is increasingly important to Western media (not vice versa) because soon there will be more English-reading consumers in India than in the Five Eyes Anglosphere. I should say that in quotes because as I said above, most Indians are blissfully unaware of the hidden agendas, and naively believe them. But 'Judeo-Christian' culture is very different from dharmic. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD I keep getting emails from The New York Times with tempting offers to subscribe to them for something really cheap like Rs. 25 a month. They need Indian readers. I have been shouting from the rooftops for years that one of these charlatan media houses needs to be kicked out, harshly, with 24 hours' notice to wind up and leave. As in the Asian proverb, 'Kill the chicken to scare the monkeys.' The monkeys will notice, and behave. Otherwise, the information warfare is just going to get worse. The writer has been a conservative columnist for over 25 years. His academic interest is innovation. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost's views.
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Business Standard
2 hours ago
- Business Standard
'Serious' safety violations: DGCA issues 4 show cause notices to Air India
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Wednesday (July 23) issued four show-cause notices to Air India over repeated violations of cabin crew deployment, training lapses, rest regulations, and operational oversight that compromise flight safety. The regulator has held multiple senior executives accountable, and asked the airline to explain why enforcement action should not be initiated. The DGCA has given the airline 14-15 days to respond. The regulator will proceed with enforcement action based on available evidence if Air India fails to reply to the notices. The enforcement action comes weeks after the AI171 crash in Ahmedabad on June 12, wherein 260 people were killed. One of the notices was based on Air India's voluntary disclosure dated June 20, which revealed that the airline operated four ultra long-range flights in April and May, with fewer cabin crew members than the regulatory minimum of 15. On flights AI126 and AI188 on April 27, only 12 and 14 crew members were deployed, respectively. On April 28, AI190 had 14 crew, and on May 2, AI126 flew with only 12. These flights violated rules the deal with crew's fatigue risk management. The DGCA held the airline's Director of Cabin Safety responsible for these. 'Such non-compliance represents a serious breach and raises concerns about the safety management and operational oversight,' the DGCA stated in the first notice. A second notice, based on a disclosure dated June 21, flagged three separate violations involving cabin crew operating flights without valid competency cards. One crew member flew on April 10 and 11 despite a lapsed certification, while another served on multiple flights between February and May under similar conditions, and a third operated a flight on December 1, 2024, after deploying an emergency slide, which disqualifies them from flying without undergoing a requalification process. The regulator held the Chief of Safety and Training Management accountable. When asked about these notices, Air India spokesperson said, "We acknowledge receipt of these notices related to certain voluntary disclosures that were made over the last one year. We will respond to the said notices within the stipulated period. We remain committed to the safety of our crew and passengers." The third notice from the DGCA listed 19 instances of training-related lapses involving pilots. These included a 114-day gap between simulator training and a release check, premature release of pilots before completing required sessions, and multiple violations of night operations clearance. The Director of Training was called out for failing to ensure compliance with training oversight mechanisms. The fourth notice related to three instances of crew duty and weekly rest requirements, reported by the airline itself on June 20. Two of the breaches occurred on June 24, 2024, and one on June 13, 2025. These were found to contravene regulation that governs crew fatigue and scheduling. 'Despite repeated warning and enforcement action of non-compliance in the past, systemic issues related to compliance monitoring, crew planning, and training governance (remain) unresolved,' the fourth notice mentioned. The Director of Flight Operations, Pankul Mathur, was held responsible.
New Indian Express
4 hours ago
- New Indian Express
183 tech snags reported by 5 Indian airlines in 2025; over 100 Air India pilots went on leave post AI171 crash
Five Indian airlines have reported as many as 183 technical defects in their aircraft until July this year, the civil aviation ministry said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha on Thursday. Out of the 183 technical snags reported to aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), 85 have been reported by Air India and Air India Express together. IndiGo and Akasa Air reported 62 and 28 technical defects, respectively, while SpiceJet reported 8 defects, according to the government data. "All defects reported by the airline to the DGCA are required to be investigated for taking appropriate rectification action. The investigation of all defects, particularly major defects, has to be completed expeditiously so as to take preventive/corrective action at the earliest possible," Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol said in the written reply. Meanwhile, the government also informed the lower House of the Parliament that as many as 112 pilots working with Air India have taken sick leave after the deadly Ahmedabad plane crash on June 12 that killed at least 260 people, including all but one of the 242 onboard.
