Air India 171: MAJOR Safety FAILURES *JUST* Found

We are coming up on two weeks since the

Air India 171 crash. And even though the

black boxes have been recovered, we have

no information from them yet. Air India

is rumored to be seen partying after

pieces of the plane have been moved as

well as the black boxes recovered on the

13th, the day after the crash, and on

the 16th, which means one of the black

boxes was on the ground for a day and

another was on the ground for 4 days

before being recovered. Despite the

boxes being called black boxes, they are

actually orange now to make it easier to

find. But questions remain, why did this

aircraft crash? And why are we now at

day 13, almost 2 weeks after the

accident? We still don't have

information. Well, there's now new

reporting that suggests Air India may be

in bigger dudu when it comes to air

maintenance and the quality of what the

company does. This comes at the same

time as reportedly Air India executives

were having a beautifully shared and

filmed office party just days after the

accident which comes across as quite

insensitive to the disaster that may

have just occurred. Uh though that video

to be verified. So what's going on with

Air India and what are we hearing on the

latest reporting? Well, first of all,

what we've heard is that the black boxes

are still in India even though they're

damaged and the uh Indian Aviation

Authority is having trouble receiving

data from these black boxes. Uh the

recorders remain in India. A lot of

folks are expecting these to get sent to

the United States so we could finally

get a pre preliminary listen of what

happened to Air India Flight 171. The

current

I would say consensus although it's

still speculative at this point is that

the aircraft suffered some form of dual

engine failure uh which uh combined with

potentially an electrical failure or a

fedc reset such as the engine computers

reverting to a reversionary mode in some

form of an electrical surge or whatever

led to both the reset of engine thrust

to idle at the same time as the ram air

turbine deployed on the aircraft.

Whatever happened, it was a cascade of

crap. It is highly unlikely that just

one thing went wrong here. So, this is

why it's important to say no, a hot day

doesn't make a plane crash. No, vapor

lock itself doesn't make a plane crash.

No, one of the fedex failing doesn't

make a plane crash. No, losing thrust on

one engine doesn't make a plane crash.

Just the ram air turbine deploying

doesn't make a plane crash. All of this

has generally to do with being the Swiss

cheese whole creation function of

aviation. So if you haven't heard that

before, there's the Swiss cheese model

in aviation that we like to refer to.

It's basically a way of saying usually

in aviation crashes occur through a

confluence or a combination of multiple

different failures. Uh, and when all

those holes in the Swiss cheese align,

such as organizational influences,

unsafe supervision, preconditions for

unsafe acts, and then unsafe acts. When

all of these align, that's how you end

up with an aviation disaster. And

unfortunately, Bloomberg is now

reporting that the Indian Air safety

audits conducted after the AirIndia 171

crash reveal multiple lapses at the

airlines and hubs in India. Take a look

at this. India's aviation safety

regulator found multiple aircraft

maintenance lapses in an audit of

airlines and airports ordered after the

AirIndia 171 crash. They not only found

uncserviceable ground handling equipment

such as baggage trolley uh in certain

airports, which that alone doesn't sound

like that big of a deal, right? But they

also found failures in maintenance

procedures and tool controls. Tool

controls, by the way, very important

when it comes to aviation because you

always want to make sure you're using

the appropriate tools to tighten or

fasten or to adjust machinery as complex

as an aircraft. uh as well as work order

instructions not being followed. So it

kind of seems like we just had this

crash that killed over 290 people and

all of a sudden the uh aviation

regulator in India is like crap maybe we

should go inspect what's going on at the

air carriers and what's going on at our

airports and all of a sudden they they

find that the air carriers are not

actually following their maintenance

procedures, their tool controls or their

work order instructions. They've now

given operators 7 days to start on their

corrective action. They also report that

aircraft maintenance engineers quote

ignored safety precautions and reported

snags to be retri rectified and defect

reports generated by aircraft systems

weren't recorded in technical log books.

This is a lot to basically say they

didn't follow safety procedures and they

didn't properly document work that was

done or potentially falsely documented

work that was done. Uh it's worth noting

that when you have an aircraft such as I

have an aircraft, the one that I just

held up. I'm a pilot. Uh we have uh this

software called camps is what usually

what we like to use. And so we have a

due list that tells us, hey, you know

what's next to be done and when. So for

example, on August 31st, which is my

when my nine-year-old actually turns 10,

uh we have to do a visual check of our

first aid kit. Okay? So we're like, you

know, we just came out of our annual

maintenance. Our due list is like

nothing. Uh and and so it's, you know,

these are the checks that we document

and follow up on to make sure that our

aircraft are following proper and safe

procedures to ensure we're actually

airworthy. And so what do we have here?

We have more failures that inspectors

found, including worn tires that leading

flights to be held up. Uh flight

simulators not properly set up to match

the aircraft configuration. This is

really important in an emergency

situation. You want to know that you've

been trained

in the same style of simulator as what

you're actually flying so that when you

go for the emergency buttons that you

have to press uh and you follow your e

emergency procedures, you actually know

where those are and you're familiar with

them. Uh this special audit apparently

was announced after the accident and uh

now there's talk about this a aviation

uh regulator suggesting that hey we're

finding that obstruction data outside of

our airports. So typically when we take

off at an airport and there's

obstruction there are obstructions we

might use in America something called an

obstacle procedure an obstacle departure

obstacle instrument departure procedure.

It's basically a way to leave an

airport, climb at a certain particular

rate, and follow a certain flight path.

So that way you can get out of the way

of towers, power lines, mountains,

various terrain, whatever, right? And so

these are really important that they're

regularly updated because people build

new towers or buildings or whatever.

Well, apparently in India, it had been 3

years where some of these had not been

updated, which is quite embarrassing. Uh

there's also apparently now a new law

that's being introduced in India to

limit or demolish buildings that exceed

height regulations by airports which is

really weird because I don't remember

buildings growing when it comes to

trying to prevent aircraft from

crashing. So kind of weird how once

again the politicians are trying to

solve one problem that might not do

anything when it seems like frankly the

aviation regulator is failing. And not

only is the aviation regulator failing,

but the actual procedures of the air

carriers are pretty sloppy. At least

this is what we're seeing right now. Uh

we apparently have uh Air India

reporting that it has so far failed to

retrieve data from the damaged recorders

in the crash. Uh underlying the need for

investment into technical infrastructure

in India. Great. So he can't even get

data off the cockpit voice recorder or

the flight data recorder both in the

black box. There's also talk here from

uh this smaller newspaper in India which

suggests that there are deep cracks in

the safety culture in India that Air

India has been under scrutiny for

repeated safety violations in recent

years particularly since the Tata Suns

took over. So some of this I wonder if

is an attack against the Tata Suns.

They're not they don't sound very

optimistic about them. But then again,

Air India did have the accident. A

recent Reuters report stated that days

before the crash, the Directorate

General of the Civil Civil Aviation

Authority had warned the airline about

operating three Airbus aircraft without

conducting inspections of critical

emergency escape slides. According to

the report, one aircraft was allowed to

fly international routes despite safety

checks being overdue by a month. Another

was overdue three months. the uh Air

India was fined about $38,000,

which is a drop in the bucket for a

large company like this, uh for allowing

one of the pilots to operate a flight

without complying with regulatory norms.

And they've had many other rostering

issues, including the violation of

flight duty time and rest periods. These

are huge. You could lose your pilot

license if you're operating outside of

FAA rules inside the United States. But

apparently in India this was almost

common place to violate duty times or

rest periods or or you know

certification issues. This is kind of

scary that a lot of this is coming to

light only after an accident. But then

again that's how it usually works.

Apparently you also had unauthorized

officials signing off on safety

documents. The DGCA is being blamed as

potentially being underststaffed and

underfunded thanks to a 91% cut in

funding for the civil aviation

infrastructure uh you know within the

country of India uh in the last year

even though the number of domestic

airports has doubled from 74 in 2014 to

147 now. This is likely to be one of the

costliest aviation disasters in Indian

history, potentially costing $350

million in passenger liability, works

out to about a million dollars a person.

Uh, and this these are US dollars and

another 125 million for the aircraft's

hull and engines. Indian carriers,

especially those operating Boeing

fleets, are expected to rise by up to

100%

for insurance premium. So in other

words, insurance premiums are expected

to double uh because of some of these

failures in India which is likely to

increase uh ticket prices though

potentially only 2 to 5%. Or even

slightly more than that. There's also

talk that senior flight attendants had

written to the prime minister to Mr.

Modi alleging that they were asked to

resign from the airline for refusing to

lie about serious safety incidents

involving the same exact model of

Dreamliner that ended up crashing the

171 Air India flight which was at the

Dreamliner 7878.

Yikes. According to their June 19th

letter, a door malfunction on Air India

129 in May 24 resulted in the accidental

deployment of an emergency slide raft

after the aircraft landed at Heathro.

The incident they say was hushed up by

the airline and the regulator regulatory

body and if there was ever a formal

inquiry, it was never made public.

Another whistleblower claims that his

claims were dismissed in 2023. He was

actually dismissed in 2023 after raising

oxygen supply issues on the aircraft.

Now, typically when you fly over 12,500

ft, pilots are required to use or have

oxygen pressured cabin. Obviously, the

air is pressurized so you have more air

molecules in a tighter place so you can

space so you can actually breathe. But

if you're flying at 35,000 ft, you've

got maybe 30 seconds to put on your

oxygen mask in the event of a rapid

decompression and the need to uh de

rapidly descend, conduct an emergency

descent. If you're flying at 45,000 ft

like like I do, you're usually looking

at only about 8 to 10 seconds to get

your mask on if you're lucky. So, you

got to be pretty dang fast and you got

to have enough oxygen on board, which

should be enough time for you to

actually not only get to a lower

altitude, but ideally also land in case

there's smoke or some other issue.

Apparently, this Boeing 77 only had 12

minutes of oxygen reserve, which is

barely enough time to make your descent,

let alone get to an airport and land.

This is scary. These incidents do not

appear isolated. In 2024, the Aviation

Ministry reported 23 safety violations

by Indian carriers, 12 of which involved

Air India and their lowfair version, Air

India Express. Air India was fined

$127,000.

Yikes. There is also there's some other

rumor rumors. Well, first of all, here

no time frame yet for when the um

investigation will conclude into the Air

India crash. Again, the flight data

recorders were recovered, but they have

not been analyzed yet. There are also

some rumors about how uh somebody issued

a bomb thread and some kind of revenge

plot against some crush that this

30-year-old robotics engineer liked but

couldn't get or whatever and sent an

email saying, "See, this 171 plot or or

crash was what we're capable of." Uh and

so there's some story about this. Uh

this has so far by authorities been uh

declared false. uh that this is a false

claim that she had anything to do with

hoax bomb threats around the Air India

171 crash and she has since been

arrested for masterminding one of the

most bizarre revenge plots in recent

memory aimed at framing a former office

colleague who was not returning her

feelings. Really weird. Anyway, this is

the latest on what's going on with the

Air India 171 crash. And it's quite

frankly somewhat scary to think that

regulators are potentially failing to

supervise what's going on at these air

carriers in India. It certainly doesn't

make me feel good uh about uh or

comfortable with you know what else is

to come in the future in India. Now

hopefully

better regulation, better supervision,

more money into regulating air carriers

and making sure that when violations

occur, they're appropriately punished.

That's hopefully what happens. Best case

scenario, knock on wood, than a disaster

like this. Why not advertise these

things that you told us here? I feel

like nobody else knows about this. We'll

we'll try a little advertising and see

how it goes. Congratulations, man. You

have done so much. People love you.

People look up to you. Kevin Praath

there, financial analyst and YouTuber.

Meet Kevin. Always great to get your

take.