BOMBAY, INDIA. The father of the pilot at the centre of the Air India disaster has pledged to ‘exonerate his boy from this bureaucratic bloodbath’ as British accident investigators face mounting calls to release the black box data. The crash, which claimed 158 souls and scattered wreckage like a toddler’s tantrum across the runway, has become a transcontinental blame game of operatic proportions.
‘My son was a hero, not a buffoon,’ declared the retired wing commander, his voice cracking over a crackling phone line from his Pune villa. ‘They want to make him the fall guy for a system that treats pilots like battery hens. I will not rest until the truth flaps its wings and pecks their eyes out.’
The man’s militant defence comes as British investigators, who arrived on scene with the enthusiasm of a man sent to clean a public lavatory with his tongue, have been accused of sitting on the flight data recorder like a broody hen on a ceramic egg. Sources close to the investigation whisper that the cockpit voice recorder may reveal a fatal error, but the father’s camp insists it will prove sabotage by a rogue ground crew or a flock of vengeful seagulls.
‘This is a circus where the clowns are wearing pinstripe suits and the ringmaster is a civil servant,’ I muttered into my own gin and tonic, which was sweating like a nervous witness. The scene at the crash site itself is a masterclass in bureaucratic theatre. Officials in polyester saris stand around holding clipboards, while the actual work is done by men in flip-flops wielding shovels. The British team, I’m told, have demanded a better hotel and a car with adequate air conditioning, issues that seem at odds with the gravity of the situation.
Meanwhile, the pilot’s father has launched a crowdfunding campaign to sue the Indian aviation regulator and the British investigators for defamation. ‘They called my son a maverick,’ he thundered. ‘I call him a martyr.’ The campaign has already raised enough rupees to buy a small fleet of rickshaws.
The timeline of the crash has become a source of feverish speculation. Air traffic control transcripts leaked to a local newspaper suggest the pilot was attempting a landing in conditions that would make a duck think twice. But the father claims these transcripts are doctored, a smear campaign orchestrated by a rival airline to scupper his son’s legacy.
‘Have they no decency?’ he asked, though rhetoric is cheap when your son is dead. The British investigators, for their part, have issued a statement so bland it could be spread on toast. ‘We are conducting a thorough investigation in accordance with international protocols,’ they said, which is bureaucrat-speak for ‘We have no idea what happened and we’re hoping everyone forgets about it.’
As the sun sets over the sticky airport tarmac, a priest performs a ritual to guide the souls of the departed to heaven, while a man in a suit argues with a man in a uniform about who will pay for the debris removal. The father vows to fight on, a modern-day Job with a Twitter account. I finish my gin and order another. This story is far from over, and if the truth is to emerge, it will have to elbow its way through a crowd of vested interests and incompetent officials. The only thing flying high here is the bullshit.
