When giants fall from the sky: Ahmedabad's Boeing 787 crash

Time of India

21 hours ago

As the Business Head for The Times of India, I lead strategic initiatives and drive growth for one of the nation's most influential media organisations. My journalist friends believe I've crossed over to the proverbial dark side. Living on the edges of a dynamic newsroom, I dabble infrequently into these times that we live and believe in the spectatorial axiom – 'distance provides perspective'. LESS ... MORE
At 6:47 am on a clear June morning, the kind Ahmedabad usually reserves for school assemblies and political flyers, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner lifted off the tarmac with the calm confidence of a machine that has done this thousands of times before. Within three minutes, it had nosedived into a medical hostel and rewritten aviation history — not with innovation this time, but with fire.
Flight AI171 was headed for London. It never made it past 625 feet.
There's something about aircraft disasters that unsettles even the most pragmatic among us. Perhaps it's the scale, the suddenness, or the sheer unnaturalness of a metal leviathan falling from the sky. But with this crash, there's an added layer of disquiet — it was a Dreamliner. The poster child for Boeing's post-2008 revival. Composite fuselage, fuel-efficient engines, ambient lighting, whisper-quiet cabins. A flying showroom of human ingenuity.
And now? Charred remains. 240 dead. A survivor from a burning wreckage. The fall of the Dream (liner)
Let's be clear — this wasn't supposed to happen. The 787 had never seen a fatal accident. It was the aviation equivalent of Rahul Dravid: consistent, safe, slightly under-hyped. But this tragedy has dragged it into a headline it never auditioned for — and dragged Boeing back into the courtroom of public scrutiny, where it's spent far too much time lately.
Remember the 737 MAX disasters? Two crashes. 346 lives. A global grounding. Congressional hearings. 'Culture of concealment,' they called it. Boeing's reputation hasn't quite taxied back from that tarmac.
And just when the engines were warming again — literally and metaphorically — we have this.
History repeats. Or at least rhymes
The last time Boeing was this embattled, TikTok hadn't even been invented. But the signs were there. Whispers of compromised quality control. Shims misplaced. Fuselages that didn't fit. An Italian supplier recently caught falsifying certifications. It reads like the aviation industry's version of a True Crime podcast. And through it all, Boeing kept saying what corporate America always says: 'We take this seriously.'
But it's hard to keep nodding when planes keep falling.
And what of Air India?
Tata Sons took charge of Air India with dreams of reinvention — a modern fleet, better service, competent management. But tragedies have no sense of timing. They arrive mid-transformation, mid-promise, and leave behind not just wreckage but doubt. Was the aircraft faulty? Was there human error? Was this a fluke or another systemic crack, polished over with PR polish?
Answers, of course, will take months. Investigations are already underway. The DGCA, the AAIB, and the NTSB — all involved. Everyone wants the black box to speak. It always does, eventually.
But in the meantime, what do we do with this quiet horror? With the image of a state-of-the-art plane plunging into a college dormitory?
From skies to screens
The images have already done their rounds. The charred fuselage. The stunned first responders. The survivor blinking against the smoke. Our hyper-documented world ensures that grief is not just shared but circulated. Algorithmically sorted. Sponsored, even.
And yet, beyond the images, there's a question that lingers like a contrail in the morning sky: Has Boeing lost the plot?
Because this isn't just about one crash. It's about a pattern. A culture. A company once known for excellence now being whispered about like a scandal-prone politician. And when excellence is replaced with expediency — in aviation, no less — the results are almost always catastrophic.
Final approach
In time, memorials will be built. Reports will be written. Statements will be issued. There will be solemn nods and reform pledges. Stocks may even rebound. But what doesn't rebound is trust. That takes time. And flight hours.
As for the Dreamliner? It may still be a marvel of engineering. But now, every time a passenger boards one, they'll pause — if only for a second — and remember.
That on a summer morning in Ahmedabad, a dream fell from the sky.
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Views expressed above are the author's own.