A CRASH THAT FLIES IN THE FACE OF OUR HUBRIS

The Ahmedabad accident has shaken us to the core. It has made us accept that not everything is in our control. Before the paranoia subsides, the nation needs to grieve

- HARISH BIJOOR

I took a flight out of Bengaluru to Kochi on the morning of June 12. All was well and happy. But by the time I reached my hotel, I heard the heartbreaking news that AI 171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, had crashed while taking off on a routine flight from Ahmedabad to London's Gatwick airport. Even as the news broke, social media was full of visuals of dark smoke burning litres of aviation fuel on the ground as the flight had crashed just 38 seconds after a full-tank take-off. It looked as if no one could be alive.

The details emerged slowly. The flight, that had 242 people, faced 241 fatalities, with just one miraculous escape of a passenger from seat 11A. Worse news was to come. The plane's crash into the B J Medical College premises killed another 38 hapless people on the ground. This remains a disaster hard to explain. Why did it happen at all?

The whole nation is in shock. So am I. Many other nations, whose nationals perished, are in shock too. Disasters of this kind rattle all in more ways than one. Even as the news kept coming out, there were prayers on every lip, hoping for more survivors and fewer fatalities. But that was not to be.

As I write this piece, it is only three days since the accident and the wound is still raw. If that is our situation, just imagine the plight of the near and dear ones of those who perished. Whole sets of lives have changed forever. Whole sets of nations and families have been scarred, not by an act of war, but by an accident. This first-ever hull loss of a Boeing Dreamliner is more than the loss of an aircraft and lives. It raises questions on many aspects of life itself.