Just as the Tata Group — Air India's new owners — was trying to upgrade and expand the carrier despite being under regulatory crosshairs, the carrier now confronts one of the worst airline disasters in recent years.
Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed moments after takeoff from the Ahmedabad airport on Thursday afternoon. Flight AI-171 took off from Runway 23 at 1:38 p.m., but shortly after, it issued a distress call and crashed in the Meghani Nagar area just outside the airport perimeter, exploding into a fiery blaze.
The aircraft, a sleek 11.5-year-old marvel built in Seattle, had first taken to the skies in December 2013 and joined Air India's fleet in January 2014.
Its history was typical for a plane of its age: over 41,000 flying hours, nearly 8,000 takeoffs and landings, and about 700 cycles in the past year, showed data shared by Cirium, an aviation data firm, with NDTV Profit.
One of 1,148 Boeing 787s globally, it was part of a fleet averaging just 7.5 years in age, representing the cutting edge of commercial aviation.
Air India, with 34 of these Dreamliners in service and 20 more on order, was racing to modernise its fleet — 190 aircraft strong, averaging just over eight years old. But beneath the veneer of progress lurked the question: was maintenance keeping pace?
The aircraft's extensive use, with an average of nearly 700 cycles annually, hinted at the relentless grind of operational demands.
As the aircraft lifted off Ahmedabad's runway, something went terribly wrong. Heavy black smoke was seen coming from the accident site, the DGCA said in a statement. Investigators scrambled to unravel what caused the aircraft, built for safety, to fall from the sky, at an altitude of 625 feet.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
As investigations continue, the world watches, haunted by the crash that shook a nation and challenged the very promise of flight.
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