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Indian High Commissioner to the UK Vikram Doraiswami opened the proceedings celebrating the 10th anniversary of Yoga Day on a sunny Friday evening by reading out a special message from King Charles III.

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Indian Express

20 minutes ago

• Indian Express

Gaurav Taneja, aka Flying Beast, reveals ‘every flight has snags' but airlines have ‘habit' of ignoring safety issues

While dissecting the recent Air India Flight 171 crash, YouTuber Gaurav Taneja ruled out several theories that are being floated online. He had initially suggested that the only way a Boeing 787 could crash in the way that Flight 171 did is if it experienced a dual engine failure. In a recent video, he seemed to point in the direction of pilot error, as he suggested that one of the pilots might have killed the wrong engine after takeoff, assuming that one had already died on the runway. In the same video, he ruled out bad weather, stating the data that is publicly available about the conditions on the fateful day of June 12. Taneja also spoke about safety standards in Indian aviation. Some years ago, he blew the whistle on practices that he perceived to be unsafe at Air Asia, and was fired from his position. Taneja is a graduate of IIT Kharagpur, and worked as a commercial pilot for a decade before becoming a full-time YouTuber. In his new video about the Air India Flight 171 crash, which claimed 270 lives, he said, 'In the event of bad weather, the aircraft warns the pilots to either delay takeoff or abort takeoff… A 787 has two radars, one on the left and one on the right. For dispatch, it is necessary for at least one to be functional.' Also read – 'Pilots know something that public doesn't' about Air India 171 crash, says Gaurav Taneja, aka Flying Beast: 'They are refusing to fly' Taneja then explained the concept of Minimum Equipment List (MEL). 'If the aircraft has 100 pieces of equipment, the rulebook says that it can function even if 30 of them have failed. For instance, an aircraft can fly safely with even one functional weather radar. This is made to operationally assist the airline. Let's go with the theory than one engine failed on the ground and the other failed after takeoff… This theory makes a little sense. But this is extremely rare. I've been researching for so many days, and it still doesn't make full sense,' he said. Taneja then moved on to the MCAS, a system that was introduced by Boeing some years ago, and was discovered to be the cause behind two 737 Max aircraft crashing. Subsequently, the entire fleet was grounded. 'Boeing was in a close battle with Airbus, and Airbus took the lead after the launch of the A320. To compete with them, Boeing unveiled the 737 Max, and decided that pilots can safely fly the aircraft with just a two-hour iPad training. They neglected to inform pilots about the MCAS system, which automatically deployed if an aircraft's nose tilted up abnormally. But pilots didn't know, and their aircraft was automatically pointing downwards because of the MCAS. This resulted in two crashes. Perhaps a different software issue could have caused the Air India crash?' Moving on to safety standards, he said, 'A pilot told me that aircraft are in 'a pathetic state'. Remember I told you about the MELs, and that a plane can fly with even one working radar? These snags are quite common. Every flight has snags. But they have a habit of overlooking these snags. The on-ground engineer will tell you that they are giving a temporary okay, they know and the airline knows that the snag will appear during the flight. Every snag that happens, a live report goes to the company. The company knows everything. The company is okaying these snags despite knowing about them, and leaving it to the pilot to deal with these snags during the flight.' Read more – 'An act of sabotage is an act of terrorism against India': Gaurav Taneja says he'll 'lose his mind' if this Air India 171 theory is true Making it clear that he wants to avoid legal trouble and that he is purely presenting theories, he continued, 'It's a sad state of affairs… 90 MELs per sector are common. They get three-page-long MEL lists; most of them have to do with issues like seats not reclining, in-flight entertainment not working, someone's remote not working… It is the pilot's job to go through that three-page MEL list and figure out what the real issues could be… It is not possible for any pilot to go through all these pages.' He cited internal politics between the departments as one of the reasons why this responsibility is handed over to pilots… It's understandable if an airline wants to hide the truth about internal issues with an aircraft, but at least they package the outside really well. If an airline can't even conceal superficial faults, imagine what's happening on the inside.' Previously, Taneja had cited MELs as a major issue, and had praised pilots for standing up and refusing to fly allegedly unsafe aircraft in the aftermath of the crash. Several flights have been cancelled in the days since the crash. On Saturday, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) ordered immediate action against three senior Air India officials following 'serious and repeated violations,' the Hindustan Times reported.

Hans India

6 hours ago

• Hans India

When airlines treat the skies as monopoly, passengers pay in blood

It's been a week since Air India Flight AI 171, a Dreamliner enroute to London Gatwick, crash-landed within seconds of take-off in Ahmedabad—killing nearly 270 people in what is now the deadliest disaster in Indian civil aviation history. And yet, the cause of the crash remains cloaked in bureaucratic silence and corporate deflection. Officials familiar with the investigation into the crash suspect that a sudden power failure shortly after take-off may have brought down the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which crashed into a medical hostel building after gaining an altitude of only 625 feet. According to an aviation expert and YouTuber, Captain Steve, in such an eventuality, the plane would fall pretty quickly and nothing would be working for the pilots to guide the plane back to the ground. When nothing else works, the ram air turbine drops out automatically at the back of the airplane' which is like a standard small boat engine that sits in the water. 'It's got a little propeller on the front of it, and it starts spinning like crazy. It works and gives me hydraulics and electric so that I can run the radios, I can lower the landing gear, and I can manoeuvre the airplane safely to a landing.' We will have to wait for the final report to know if the flight had the RAT system or not and was power failure the real reason for the crash. For now, all we know are heart-wrenching fragments. Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and co-pilot Clive Kundar perished with their passengers. Vishwakumar Ramesh, seated in 11A, survived by a twist of fate, though his younger brother in 11J did not. In another tragic corner, a doctor's infant son clings to life in an ICU after the fireball consumed their residential block. DNA identification is underway, bodies are being handed over, and prayers offered. But the larger and grimmer question looms: Who will take responsibility for this catastrophe? A culture of silence, not safety: Air India continues to report an alarming number of technical snags. On June 19, AI 388 made an emergency return to Delhi after take-off, due to expired emergency slides and gas canisters. How was such an aircraft cleared for flight? We are told a 'blind check' was done—a cockpit drill where a pilot, eyes closed, locates controls under guidance. But that doesn't explain how expired safety equipment made it onto a passenger aircraft. This is not a pilot memory that is being tested—this is ignoring basic maintenance. Worse still is the information vacuum. There are unconfirmed reports of 29 technical snags in 35 days, yet there is no official statement or denial from either Air India or the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). Just silence. Aviation experts appear every night on TV, advising patience and reiterating that airplanes are 'systems of systems'—digital engines, hydraulics, computers. They urge us to await the investigation. But why should public trust hinge on the black box, when the entire system has gone dark? The DGCA—the very body mandated to enforce aviation safety—is conveniently hiding behind the pretext of an 'ongoing investigation.' But why isn't it answering the real question even in the aftermath of such a colossal failure: if red flags were raised about Air India's deteriorating safety standards since the Tata takeover, why was the airline allowed to operate unchecked until it cost 270 lives?' Even a semblance of transparency would have helped rebuild public trust. Instead, all we get is cold corporate condolence. A vague assurance that a '360-degree investigation' will cover human error, technical failure, even sabotage. But no one—neither the Union Civil Aviation Minister, nor the DGCA, nor Air India, and neither the owners at the Tata Group—is willing to publicly own up the failure. Crisis management or image management? As usual, PR was quicker to act than protocol. Tata Group Chairman N Chandrasekaran gave ana exclusive, soft-focus interview to a national TV channel, circulated promptly by a PR agency. Every line sounded rehearsed. He was asked where he was when he heard the news. 'I was in my office in Bombay… I rushed to Ahmedabad,' he said, emotionally. He grieved with the victims. He promised a trust fund. He ruled out engine failure, hinted that maintenance schedules were in place. But he wasn't asked the real questions: Why were no aircraft grounded after the crash? Has a complete audit of all Dreamliners been ordered? Why not pause operations, inspect every aircraft, and restore public confidence before another tragedy unfolds? What could have been a moment for transformational leadership appeared to have become a scripted corporate monologue. The opposition: Rhetoric without responsibility: Shockingly, even the opposition has missed the mark. Instead of demanding tough questions from regulators, they're busy seeking a special Parliament session to indulge in hollow sloganeering—yet another performance of fakery and optics, perhaps timed for Bihar's upcoming elections. Where is the concern for aviation safety? Where is the pressure on the Civil Aviation Ministry? When disasters happen, only families grieve. The rest— politicians, bureaucrats, corporate houses—hide behind press releases, compensation packages and vague promises of 'processes being followed.' What they fail to grasp is this: Accountability is not an inconvenience; it is the cornerstone of public safety. Crisis misused is crisis wasted: Air India, under the Tata Group, inherited a mess. It lost over ₹70,000 crore by 2021 and was sold for ₹18,000 crore—₹2,700 crore in cash, the rest in assumed debt. But buying an airline doesn't mean buying immunity. Despite injecting new aircraft and claiming adherence to protocols, the ecosystem remains crippled. Maintenance gaps, skilled manpower shortages, outdated safety audits, and an inert regulator define India's aviation sector today. Air India needed not just a financial reboot—it required a culture overhaul, a safety renaissance, and ethical transparency. Are they moving in that direction remains the big question. Even now, there is no confirmation that all AI aircraft are being thoroughly re-checked. Chandrasekaran ruled out any independent probe, content to let the DGCA. He even claimed, 'I didn't see any red flags.' The biggest red flag, sir, remains the charred remains of AI 171. The larger truth is that Air India is being strangled by operational laxity, financial burden, regulatory lethargy, and public distrust. Without systemic overhaul—real, not cosmetic— we are sleepwalking into more disasters. The death toll of AI 171 is not just a statistic—it is a mirror held up to a country that fails its own people. Where profit outweighs procedure, where regulators hide behind forms, and where tragedies are converted into talking points before disappearing from memory. Airlines must stop treating the skies as their monopoly and passengers as collateral. The government must treat civil aviation safety not as a footnote in a budget document but as a matter of national security. The DGCA must be made autonomous, answerable to a parliamentary body—not to the political bosses or airline owners. After all, transparency is not a courtesy. It is a duty. Until we stop flying blind—in aircraft, in governance, and in ethics—we will remain a country that mourns its citizens in silence but never learns why they died. (The author is former Chief Editor of The Hans India)

Time of India

6 hours ago

• Time of India

Iran Conducts NUCLEAR TEST, Explosions Trigger 5.1 Quake Amid Israel War? Panic Amid Speculations

Air India Crash: Miracle Survivor Vishwas Kumar Ramesh Discharged, to Perform Brother's Last Rites Air India crash survivor Viswas Kumar Ramesh has been discharged from Ahmedabad Civil Hospital and is heading home to perform the last rites of his younger brother, who perished in the April 12 crash. Ramesh, the only survivor among 242 passengers on the London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner, was flung out of the aircraft after it broke apart mid-takeoff. His seat, 11A, detached and landed near ground level, sparing him the deadly fireball. Ramesh, a British national of Indian origin, called his survival a miracle and expressed disbelief at how he made it out alive. A viral video earlier showed him emerging from the BJ Medical campus minutes after the crash. Ramesh is now returning home not to celebrate life, but to bid farewell to his brother. PM Modi and HM Amit Shah had visited him during his recovery. As he prepares for the cremation, his story remains a powerful symbol of resilience in the face of overwhelming tragedy.#AirIndiaCrash #ViswashkumarRamesh #Boeing787Crash #MiracleSurvivor #BJMedicalTragedy #IndiaUK #ModiAhmedabadVisit #AviationDisaster #CrashSurvivorStory #PlaneCrashIndia #toi #toibharat #bharat #breakingnews #indianews 34.3K views | 2 days ago