Air India Crash

Ajmal Bhatty
Promoter of Ethical Financial Solutions
Founder of World-Of-Takaful

On June 12, 2025, Air India Flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, crashed 30 seconds after take-off from Ahmedabad, killing 260 people including 19 on the ground2. Preliminary findings suggest both engine fuel control switches moved from ‘RUN’ to ‘CUTOFF’ almost simultaneously, starving the engines of thrust. The cause remains under investigation, with human error, design flaws, and procedural gaps all under scrutiny1.

Vishwas Kumar Ramesh, a British-Indian businessman, crawled out of the wreckage with burns and fractures—only to carry his brother’s coffin a week later. “That miracle came with unbearable grief.”

Helping his mother at their tea stall near the medical college, Aakash was among the 19 killed on the ground. His mother survived, but their stall—and their lives—were shattered.

Returning to the UK after visiting India, the Nanabawa family of three perished. Relatives faced chaos and bureaucratic hurdles, highlighting a lack of preparedness in international response.

A mother of three recovering from treatment, Rupal boarded the plane smiling. By the time her brother got home, the crash had taken her life—and left her children waiting in vain.

We have seen such tragedies before and the legacies over the last 50 years. Each disaster reshaped aviation safety norms. The Air India crash may become the Dreamliner’s defining inflection point, much like the 737 MAX crisis.

The 737 MAX crisis was one of the most devastating and consequential events in modern aviation history — a sobering case of engineering missteps, regulatory failures, and corporate pressure converging with tragic results. The crisis was about how risk is managed, communicated, and prioritized in high-stakes industries. It exposed the dangers of siloed decision-making, opaque systems, and corporate cultures that suppress dissent. Boeing lost over $87 billion in shareholder value since 2018. It’s CEO was ousted; multiple leadership changes followed. The company paid $2.5 billion in a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. Airbus overtook Boeing in global aircraft orders. The crisis triggered a global re-evaluation of aircraft certification processes, pilot training, and software transparency

1. Regulatory Shockwaves: India’s Director General of Civil Aviation ordered urgent inspections of fuel control switches across Boeing fleets. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s 2018 advisory on switch locking mechanisms was non-mandatory — now it is under global review. It is expected there will be tighter mandates on cockpit design redundancies and human-machine interface protocols.
2. Operational Disruption: Air India cancelled dozens of flights post-crash, and slashed fares by 15% to regain passenger trust. Bookings dropped 20%, revealing fragile consumer confidence. Airlines globally are reassessing fleet age, pilot training, and emergency protocols.
3. Reputational Fallout: Tata Group’s ambition to revive Air India as a world-class carrier faces a credibility crisis. Boeing’s Dreamliner program, previously unblemished by fatal crashes, now faces renewed scrutiny.

1. Record-Breaking Claims: This is India’s costliest aviation insurance claimto date. Global reinsurers in UK, Canada, Portugal are expected to bear the brunt due to international passenger mix.

2. Premium Hardening: Aviation insurance premiums are expected to spike 10–30% globally. Retrocession markets are bracing for ripple effects.
3. Policy Recalibration: Insurers may need to revise clauses around cockpit design liability, fuel system redundancies, and pilot error. This should, as it always has done after aviation disasters of the past, for travel takaful and insurance awareness to surge — especially for accidental death, evacuation, and repatriation.

Tragic stories of passengers, the crew and innocent bystanders who perish in these disasters, remind us that behind every mortality table lies a child’s toy, a parent’s voice message, a tea stall never reopened. Unfortunate as it is, it is such stories that lead us to understand the risk better for the sustainability of the risk structures that protect and provide peace of mind to those left behind.

It is the  Systemic Risk Mapping that we then harness to move beyond isolated failure analysis to interconnected risk ecosystems — design, training, regulation, and insurance.

It is the Scenario Modelling that enables us to incorporate low-probability, high-impact events into actuarial and operational models.

It is the Ethical Approach that is needed where the airlines and insurers need to communicate with empathy, transparency, and accountability.

And most importantly, it is the Global Collaboration that is needed for cross-border claims and investigations demanding harmonized legal and regulatory frameworks.

• Do our compensation models honour more than financial restitution?
• In the aftermath of disasters, what mechanisms exist to support the emotional, spiritual, and societal recovery of survivors and families?

• Behind every table of 260 deaths lie fragmented families, disrupted livelihoods, and unresolved grief. How can insurance modelling account for qualitative dimensions of loss?
• Are our risk algorithms biased toward protecting infrastructure more than people?

• Should insurers evaluate cockpit and interface liabilities as shared ethical risks between manufacturers, software providers, and regulators?
• In complex system failures, are we underwriting innovation or silently normalizing design negligence?

• What protection exists for families like Aakash’s, whose lives were extinguished far from the fuselage?
• Should insurers consider the ethics of risk mapping in high-population zones near airports?