What Is Going On In Our Skies?

The Aviation Crisis No One Will Name

“Moments after takeoff the jet began losing thrust. After reaching only 650 feet, it abruptly started to descend. What followed wasn’t a systems failure. It was a human one, intentional, and preventable.”

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For the record, I hate writing, or thinking, or talking about plane crashes.

Lately, it’s unavoidable.

Scroll through Instagram or flip through the news, and you’ll see planes narrowly avoiding collisions, turbulence so violent passengers are hospitalized, and emergency landings ending in catastrophic smoke and flames. Incidents that once felt rare are surfacing with disturbing regularity.

In the weeks following the crash of Flight 171, two more Air India jets made headlines. One caught fire while taxiing on the tarmac. Another skidded off a runway during landing. Thankfully, no one died. But the pattern is impossible to ignore.

I worry we are numb to the shock at which these incidents are occurring.

That’s why I responded when a source contacted me, urging me to tell the truth about what’s happening inside the airline industry. They warned of fading oversight, cultural blind spots, and a dangerous lack of industry transparency.

They pointed me to Flight 171.

On a clear June morning, Air India Flight 171, a Boeing 787 bound for Ahmedabad to London Gatwick, fell from the sky seconds after takeoff.

CCTV captured a chilling detail: the aircraft’s ram air turbine, a last-resort emergency power source, spinning midair. It was the first visible sign that something had gone terribly awry.

The jet reached just 650 feet before losing thrust and descending rapidly. It crashed into a residential block on the city’s outskirts. Flames swept across rooftops. Shrapnel tore through bedrooms. All on board were killed, except for one British passenger who climbed out of the exit door and miraculously survived. Dozens more on the ground were injured or displaced.

Initial theories pointed to the usual: mechanical failure, pilot error, or weather.

But the black box data told a different story.

The engines had not failed. They had been shut down.

Manually.

Both fuel cutoff switches, which are physically gated and spaced apart to prevent accidental activation, were disengaged by hand just 37 seconds after takeoff.

Moments later, they were switched back on.

But it was too late.

The cockpit voice recorder captured a chilling exchange.

Co-pilot: Why did you cut off the fuel?
Captain: I didn’t do so.

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When I overlooked reporting on this story, the source followed up again. "Expose this crash," they said. "American lives are at risk every time one of these aircraft takes off."

Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, who was flying the plane, was a senior instructor with more than 15,600 hours of flight experience. Hours before the flight, he reportedly told a terminal guard, "Take care of Papa."In hindsight, it was a farewell no one recognized at the time. He had recently lost his mother and had taken personal leave. He was considering early retirement to care for his father. When he returned to duty, colleagues described him as distant, withdrawn, and uncommunicative.

No psychological evaluation was conducted before his reinstatement. A routine physical cleared him to fly.

India does not currently require psychological screening for commercial pilots. Standard medical exams focus on eyesight, blood pressure, and physical health. Mental health conditions such as depression, burnout, or suicidal ideation are not actively assessed. Pilots who disclose psychological distress risk being grounded indefinitely with limited paths to reinstatement. Most stay silent.

If Flight 171 was brought down by a psychological crisis, it would not be without precedent. In 2015, a Germanwings co-pilot deliberately crashed his aircraft into the French Alps, killing everyone on board. That tragedy led the European Union to mandate psychological screening for pilots. The FAA also revisited its protocols. But those changes have not been fully adopted in all parts of the world.

According to the Washington Post, preliminary findings show that both engines on Flight 171 stopped receiving fuel shortly after takeoff due to manual activation of the cutoff switches. The report describes cockpit confusion. One pilot transmitted a "MAYDAY" distress call. Later, a voice asked why the fuel was cut off. The reply: "I did not do it."

Whether intentional or accidental, cutting fuel supply just seconds after takeoff is deeply unusual. Aviation analyst Terry Tozer called it "absolutely bizarre."

The crash also revealed long-standing problems in cockpit culture. In 2020, an Air India Express crash in Kozhikode killed 21 people and exposed how junior pilots often defer to their superiors, even as danger escalates. In Indian aviation, hierarchy is deeply ingrained. Questioning a senior captain can be seen as disrespectful.

On Flight 171, the co-pilot reportedly spoke up only after the engines had already shut down.

India’s licensing standards also fall below those of many countries. A commercial pilot in India can qualify with just 200 hours of flight time, compared to 1,500 in the United States and between 750 and 1,000 in Europe and Australia. Officials argue that simulator training helps close the gap. But as one U.S.-based captain put it, "A simulator doesn’t teach you how to hold the yoke steady when lightning hits the runway. It doesn’t teach you how to fly blind or calm a panicking co-pilot."

Some cadets move from flight school to commercial cockpits in less than a year, with little exposure to international airspace. The system prioritizes volume, not resilience.

Silence is trained. And ritual honored. Pilots tap fuselages before boarding, tape religious icons to dashboards, carry talismans. These rituals are often harmless. But, as one official told me, "It’s not about faith. It’s about when belief replaces training. When ritual overrides instinct, backed by a checklist."

This is not just an Indian problem. More than 6,000 Indian-trained pilots fly for international carriers. Around 2,000 operate in U.S. airspace. They follow foreign regulations, but many were shaped by the training systems they came from.

India is now the world’s third-largest civil aviation market, serving over 240 million passengers annually. Pilot demand is surging. Training pipelines are under pressure to produce more pilots, faster, even as safety systems struggle to keep up.

Mental health remains one of the weakest links. After the Ahmedabad runway overrun on June 12, 2025, India’s civil aviation minister revealed that 112 Air India pilots reported sick on June 16 alone, including 51 commanders and 61 first officers. The DGCA issued a circular on crew wellness, but insiders say it had little effect. Guidelines introduced in 2022 include peer support programs and cognitive screening, but implementation remains inconsistent. Most pilots still avoid speaking up.

“Signing up means being grounded without pay,” one pilot told the Indian Express.

Western aviation systems aren’t immune either. One anonymous U.S. first officer admitted, "I lied to the FAA about the treatment I was receiving. That would’ve opened a can of worms. I would’ve been grounded. The system is so broken. The industry doesn’t want the stigma of pilots with mental health problems still flying."

So far, it’s the public asking all the right questions;

Why did a respected captain shut down a working aircraft?

Why was no psychological screening in place?

Why did the co-pilot stay silent until it was too late?

Until India and the airlines hiring Indian-trained pilots confront the structural failures that made Flight 171 possible, this tragedy will not be an exception.

What failed that morning wasn’t mechanical malfunction. It was silence, trained into the system, that is navigating our skies today.

As artificial intelligence transforms the future of aviation, the human side of air safety is unraveling. What aviation urgently needs is not just advances in technology, but stronger oversight, better training, and meaningful reform.

What keeps us safe at 30,000 feet isn't just engineering. It's the courage to question, and the systems that allow and support it.