Will An AI Pilot Be Made The Fall Guy Again?
The man who miraculously survived the AI-171 crash in Ahmedabad must be wondering what he had done to be saved by this act of God. Was it something that he did in his previous life, or was he saved for a duty he must perform in this one? The former reason is impossible to gauge but Vishwaskumar Ramesh certainly stands as the main counterpoint to the familiar narrative that usually follows any air crash: that the pilots erred, not their flying machine.
This time too, the initial hours after the crash saw the same pilot error story being peddled, especially by aviation experts abroad and in India. That the pilots were distracted and took catastrophically wrong decisions like retracting the flaps rather than the landing gear or shutting off a running engine rather than one that may have failed. That was accompanied by the mantra—shamefully echoed by many Indian media too—that the Boeing 787-9 is a really safe aircraft.
That Boeing's formidable international PR machine could be behind this huge and touching faith in an aircraft is very probable. But what stood squarely in the way of that story taking wing is the testimony of the British-Indian national, Vishwaskumar, recorded by countless media channels. Now that the black boxes have been found their data may well corroborate that the pilots did their best. But will the big guns allow the 'safest" aircraft line to be contradicted?
It is also providential that a local boy also filmed the plane going down, from an angle that was far closer than the two clips from the cameras at the airport. In his video, the Ram Air Turbine (RAT) can be seen deployed in the undercarriage, which means that the engines and/or power had shut down and the pilots had heroically tried to get emergency power to regain thrust to prevent a crash. That also supports Vishwaskumar's recollection of the flight's last moments.
He recollected there was a loud bang—which is now being interpreted as proof of the RAT being deployed. He added that the plane seemed to stop and then the 'engines began to race". That was actually the high-pitched whine of the turbine. He also mentioned a green light coming on in the cabin which is proof of the RAT being deployed and the plane signalling a dire emergency. None of these point to the pilots being distracted or careless; it points squarely to the aircraft.
When Air India's much-loved Emperor Ashoka Boeing 747 aircraft—AI 855— bound for Dubai crashed on January 1, 1978, in the Arabian Sea near Mumbai's Bandra Bandstand just minutes after take-off, the investigation followed a rather predictable trajectory. The disaster was blamed on the extremely experienced pilot, Madan Lal Kukar, whose colleagues in the cockpit also had many thousand flying hours to their credit. This, despite evidence of instrument failure.
The cockpit voice recorder revealed that the Captain's attitude direction indicator (ADI) had 'toppled", still showing a right bank relative to the horizon when it had actually straightened out. The First Officer's ADI reply indicated his ADI had also toppled. Only the Flight Engineer's ADI showed the aircraft had levelled out. How could the pilot then be solely blamed for banking left to correct that angle when the plane's instrument had malfunctioned? But sadly, he was.
In 1985, a single Federal district judge in New York rejected charges of negligence against the Boeing Company and other defendants in a suit related to the crash. Judge James M Fitzgerald ruled that the plaintiffs—families of those who died in the crash—had not proved their contention that it was primarily caused by malfunction of a cockpit instrument. He ruled that the main cause of the crash was the negligence and disorientation of Captain Kukar.
He said Kukar was 'unfit to fly" as he was taking diabetes medication and had been dieting, adding that he had consumed alcohol the night before. He also said the co-pilot was 'negligent" as he had not watched the instruments and warned Kukar! Even today's rules (there were none in 1978) stipulate pilots cannot drink alcohol eight hours before a flight; if Kukar had consumed any, it was 24 hours before. Nor was it proved that he had alcohol in his system while flying.
There was evidence about two previous incidents involving Boeing planes and malfunctioning ADIs, but they had not caused any accident. That belied Boeing's contention that there had never been multiple such failures on its planes and none on Emperor Ashoka either. One of the incidents was then shown to have 'contradictory" evidence and the judge was not convinced that the other one made a difference to the main issues of the AI-855 crash case.
So, the judge decided anyway the ADI had not failed and hence there were no alarms and that the pilot was to blame! No wonder Boeing issued a statement saying it was 'pleased with the court's decision." As were the Lear Siegler who made the ADIs and the Collins Radio division of Rockwell International Corporation, makers of the backup warning system. But why did India not protest against this blatant whitewashing of US companies by a US court?
Interestingly, the then government-owned Air India was not party to the case as out-of-court settlements limited its liability in crashes to $20,000 per passenger on international flights. Between 1978 (the crash) and 1985 (the verdict), eight ministers handled civil aviation including two PMs, Morarji Desai and Rajiv Gandhi. Also, in 1985, US courts dismissed the Indian government's $3.3 billion claim against Union Carbide Company for the Bhopal gas disaster.
A fake document purported to be a 'preliminary finding" of India's Air Accident Investigation Bureau claimed that Captain Sumeet Sabharwal's seat slid back at takeoff leading to his body falling on the thrust gears, resulting in engines stalling and crashing! But the black boxes have been sent to US's National Transportation Safety Board for deciphering so how could AAIB report that the data pins the crash on a faulty seat and pilot error? Disinformation has begun.
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What next for AI-171? Vishwaskumar's testimony backs the pilots. But Boeing has a brimming order book, as does the engine maker GE. A lot of money is at stake. So, the next target will probably be Air India itself. Will the presence of the airline, the aircraft maker, the engine-supplier and international and national accident probe agencies in the investigations ensure that none of them will be able to exert pressure to exonerate themselves or diminish culpability?
The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views.
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First Published:
June 20, 2025, 15:11 IST
News opinion Opinion | Will An AI Pilot Be Made The Fall Guy Again?
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