Abhijit Bhattacharyya | Disasters In Air: A Tale Of 3 Avoidable Crashes

All air disasters broadly fall into two categories -- avoidable or unavoidable. The former is due to forced or unforced human errors or unexpected machine failure over maintenance or allied factors, which could have prevented an accident; and the latter (unavoidable) disaster is owing to something which is beyond human error or machine malfunction -- like a lightning strike of engine or unprecedented fury of nature breaking the craft in mid-air into pieces.

Today, one must examine flight safety in various crashes which holds lessons for the future. On November 12, 1996 (under New Delhi’s ATC), 80 km near Palam airport, two airborne craft -- a passenger-carrying Saudi Air 747 which was climbing after departure from Delhi, and a “descending” Kazakhstan Air cargo-laden Ilyushin-76 -- collided at 14,000 feet. It was the world’s worst avoidable mid-air disaster due to human failure (Kazakhstan Air pilot error), killing all of 349 people on board.

An unusually bizarre combination of both “unavoidable” and “avoidable” accident, however, took place June 23, 1985 when an Air India Boeing 747 “Kanishka” exploded mid-air off the Ireland coast, killing all 329 crew and passengers. Now, if a full-load airworthy 747 explodes in fair weather at 15,000 feet while descending, it would prima facie be seen as “unavoidable”. But investigation showed that it was an act of terrorism, due to several lapses of grave nature and criminal negligence by the ground staff at Toronto, from where it took off. The term “unavoidable”, therefore, gets superseded by “avoidable”, and the ground staff error becomes the reason. The Air India crash cause shifts from “unavoidable” mid-air explosion to “avoidable” professional failure by the Canadian authorities.

A “real” unavoidable disaster occurred on March 5, 1966 in Japan when a BOAC Boeing 707, soon after take-off, “broke up after encountering an abnormally strong gust of wind that generated a load considerably in excess of the craft design limits”. All 124 on board perished.

After reviewing these three airborne accidents, let’s get down to basics. If any aircraft faces a major disaster, resulting in 100 per cent fatalities of crew and passengers near, or on, ground in fair weather, with all other factors being normal, the likelihood of such an accident being classified as “avoidable” will be absolutely correct.

Thus, when in clear weather Thursday, June 12, 2025, the fully-laden Air India Boeing 787-8 “Dreamliner”, Flight 171, took off from Ahmedabad and crashed after being airborne for just 32 seconds (from liftoff), there is no doubt that this was an avoidable disaster. But the bigger question is linked to the multi-billion-dollar aviation business. Was this crash owing to human error or a catastrophic machine failure?

The powerful aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, is trying to put the entire blame on the pilot, who is dead, and cannot defend himself. Given whatever familiarity this writer has with the world of aviation, it might be time for some self-introspection by the Western mega-corporation. What does Boeing have to say about the June 15, 2026 crash of the B-52H Stratofortress at Edwards Air Force Base in California, killing all eight crew members on board?

The B-52H is a behemoth, the backbone of the USAF’s manned strategic bomber command. After a 60-second take-off run, it could not even "lift" itself from 15,000-feet runway, crashing after being airborne for just a few seconds. Was this not one of the deadliest peacetime crashes for US Air Force’s 419th flight test squadron? Who was at fault? Man, or machine? Is there any doubt that it was avoidable?

The eight-engine super-bomber rolls down the concrete path 60 seconds to be airborne, but fails to keep climbing. Instead, it falls with a thud and is engulfed by fire. Whatever may be the result of the official inquiry, whosoever may have been at fault, whatever the man-machine deficiency, the final conclusion of the accident inquiry team is bound to conclude that this was an avoidable accident.

Let’s turn now to June 13, 2026, to the Indian Air Force’s Antonov-32 crash on the runway at Jorhat. Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1999-2000 has this to say about the original Soviet Russia-manufactured, but now in Ukraine, twin-engine, 27-ton MTOW “short/medium range transport”, which was ordered by the Indira Gandhi government in 1976. According to Jane’s, India procured 123 Antonov-32s, being the first overseas customer of the (then) Moscow-made flying machine.

Unlike other air crashes referred to above, however, any and every Indian could see the IAF AN-32 mishap live from Internet. In fair weather on the morning of June 13, the plane made a perfect touchdown on the 9,000-foot Jorhat runway and rolled steadily for at least five seconds.

Thereafter, in what is still hard to explain, the aircraft, which had already landed, wobbled, stuttered, and made movements like a late-night drunkard trying to do the Bharatanatyam by veering left off the runway, trying more tricks, and then falling into a soft ditch with its nose sinking deep into the muddy grassland, to be engulfed by fire in a flash. All five crew members inside the fateful aircraft had no chance to escape. It was not an “air crash while trying to land”, as reported by a section of India’s non-aviation media. It was an accident on the ground after the plane had made a perfect touch-down and there certainly could not have been anything wrong with the pilots’ flying skills at all. It was an out-and-out “avoidable” mishap, where the pilot simply cannot be blamed. It was a transparent and visible malfunction of the machine.

Of course, in all these aircraft accidents, the respective flight safety bosses will definitely come to a conclusion.

But the best or worst part of it is that even after one full year, the crash review report of Air India Flight 171 Boeing 787 “Dreamliner” has not officially been completed or made public. Like the free-style "diplomatic" utterances and activities of the US President, the Boeing corporation too seems somewhat aggressive to ensure that no adverse investigation report emerges from India on its vaunted flying machine. Underneath this bravado by the Seattle-based Boeing also appears an edgy and nervous aviation giant which is apprehensive about its market prospects in a world of volatility and forward march of Europe’s Airbus consortium. The conclusion, however, is quite inescapable. The two Boeing crashes of Ahmedabad (June 2025) and Edwards USAF base (June 2026), and the Jorhat airport (June 2026) Antonov-32 accident were completely avoidable.

The writer is a life member of the Aeronautical Society of India and an alumnus of the National Defence College, New Delhi. The views expressed here are personal.