Let’s be perfectly clear. The British government, in a fit of something resembling competence, has called for a full inquiry into the Air India crash that sent a hundred souls spiralling into the wet, grey embrace of the Atlantic. Families, their faces etched with a grief that would make a stone weep, are demanding answers on home soil. But this is Britain, land of the stiff upper lip and the even stiffer drink. So naturally, the response is a committee, a statement, and a promise to ‘look into it’ with all the urgency of a sloth on sedatives.
Picture it: Whitehall, a corridor of polished floors and polished lies. A man in a suit that costs more than your annual rent stands at a podium. He speaks of ‘thorough investigations’ and ‘cooperation with Indian authorities.’ His words are like custard creams: bland, predictable, and they leave a faintly unpleasant aftertaste. The families, huddled in a room smelling of stale tea and despair, want more. They want answers. They want someone to explain why their loved ones are now fish food.
Let’s talk about the inquiry itself. It will be chaired by a retired judge, probably a Sir Something-Something with a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp. He’ll gather evidence, which is code for rifling through paperwork and avoiding any real blame. There will be experts, probably the same experts who said the Titanic was unsinkable. They’ll talk about ‘procedural failures’ and ‘systemic issues’ like they’re diagnosing a slightly off-colour lawn, not a catastrophe that tore families apart.
But the real theatre is happening elsewhere. The tabloids are already sharpening their fangs. The Daily Mail has a front page featuring a crying mother with the headline ‘Why Did They Die?’. The Guardian is composing a thoughtful piece on aviation safety in the Global South. And the Sun? Well, the Sun is probably running a competition to win a model plane and a crate of gin. Because that’s how we cope, isn’t it? We commercialise tragedy, wrap it in flag-waving and booze, and hope the hangover numbs the guilt.
Let’s not forget the gin-soaked irony. I’m writing this from a pub near Heathrow, where the planes roar overhead like angry gods. The barman, a man with the weary eyes of a failed poet, pours me another double. ‘Another crash inquiry?’ he says, wiping a glass. ‘They’ll blame it on the weather, the pilot, or a rogue pigeon. Never the system.’ He’s right. The system is a beautiful, bloated beast that exists to protect itself. It will produce a report the size of a phonebook, full of recommendations that will be ignored until the next crash. Then we’ll do it all again.
Meanwhile, the families wait. They wait in meeting rooms with plastic chairs and flickering lights. They wait for a phone call that never comes. They wait for someone to say, ‘I’m sorry, we failed you.’ But apologies require accountability, and accountability is a foreign concept in this green and pleasant land where blame is a hot potato everyone passes to the next civil servant.
So here’s my inquiry, free of charge. The Air India crash was a tragedy, yes. But the real tragedy is the theatre of inquiry itself, a slow, bureaucratic dance that makes the victims secondary to the procedure. We demand answers, but we get platitudes. We demand justice, but we get a promise of ‘full cooperation.’ It’s enough to make a man drink. And believe me, I’m doing my part.
In the end, the report will come out. It will be praised by the suits and forgotten by the public. The families will get a moment of closure, a brief flicker of acknowledgement, before the next disaster steals the headlines. And I’ll still be here, in this pub, watching the planes and wondering if any of it matters. Probably not. But at least the gin is cold.
