​Since I published my second blog article on the 25th of January – where I highlighted some exclusive insights relating to a whistleblower Air India captain, who cannot be named for legal reasons, raising concerns about passenger and Boeing 777-200LR aircraft safety [claiming they're flying illegally and could be left without oxygen if the cabin were to suffer a sudden decompression] – I have the following updates:

The whistleblower captain has sent a series of complaints via emails in 2024 filed with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) dated the 2nd of January, 27th of January, and the 7th of February. In these complaints, he painstakingly explains to the DGCA that he was “illegally terminated from Air India”.
 
He further “requested multiple times from the DGCA to hold a fair and just enquiry to be conducted based on the principles of natural justice, pertaining to the safety violation”, which he believes is being done willfully and deliberately even though Air India officials have been cautioned since January 2023.
 
According to the DGCA, they conducted a comprehensive investigation into the alleged violations. "Since the investigation prima facie revealed non-compliance by the airline, a show cause notice was issued to the Accountable Manager of Air India Limited", said the DGCA.
 
"The response to the show cause notice was duly examined with respect to the laid down stipulations under the relevant statutory provisions and the performance limits stipulated in critical documentations laid down by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)", it said.
 
Of paramount importance to the whistleblower captain is that he wants to understand “why the DGCA hasn’t taken any corrective action against Air India to stop operating those illegal flights”, which was the primary subject of his complaint [because he believes this is a cause of extreme danger to the lives of passengers and crew on these leased Boeing 777-200LR aircraft while flying between Indian cities and San Francisco [SFO]].
 
The whistleblower captain states that Air India is "misusing the privileges of the Air Operator’s Certificate on a daily basis, which is a license by the granted by the DCGA to legally operate a commercial airline. Misusing privileges of license on a daily basis warrants a serious review of the situation”.

​I have also read with interest some highly sensitive and confidential information relating to this matter shared by the whistleblower captain. From these documents, some things can be made public, especially in relation to how this situation got to where we are today.
 
On the 22nd of January 2023, the whistleblower captain raised a voluntarily safety report by writing to the various heads of departments of Air India via an email regarding this critical issue. Prior to this date, he did extensive research into this important matter.
 
While his research was on-going regarding the same issue, on the 30th of January he was scheduled to operate a similar flight from SFO to Bangalore. On that day, for the route which he was assigned to operate as the PIC (Pilot in Command), he was presented with at least three flight plans, one after the other. These were presented by the flight planners at the IFD [Integrated Flight Dispatch] via the flight dispatch office in New Delhi.
 
However, he felt he had no choice but to reject all of the flight plans because “he was duty bound towards the safety of his passengers and crew, as these flight plans were planned in a manner which was not only illegal but also fatal for the passengers and crew in case a depressurization emergency were to take place on certain segments of the route”. Therefore, he insisted that a safe and legal routing be offered by the flight dispatch department between SFO and Bangalore.
 
Now, because of the change in the routing demanded by the whistleblower captain [PIC in this case], the flight dispatch office had to figure out an alternate route beyond the job of automatically printing out the everyday flight plan routings. It is a standard procedure to get a flight plan before any flight; however, the issue here is that getting alternate flight plans for this reason is not a regular occurrence.
 
Sometimes an airline will have a standard route it uses for a flight – mostly on short domestic routes – and these routes will be saved in a database on the aircraft’s Flight Management Computer [FMC]. The FMC is an advanced computer system that plays a key role in providing flight guidance and control to the aircraft and is a critical component of the Boeing 777 aircraft which contains navigation and aircraft performance data. The FMC works in conjunction with other systems, such as the Flight Management System (FMS), the autopilot and auto – throttle etc., to ensure safe and efficient flight operations.
 
Ultimately, the FMC is responsible for calculating and displaying essential flight-related information to the pilots, including routes, speeds, altitudes, and vertical and lateral navigation. It also controls the autopilot and auto throttle systems, helping to maintain the aircraft’s stability and performance during various phases of flight.
 
Therefore, each flight route is planned based on several factors, including options for speed, altitude, fuel consumption, alternate airport/route, weight etc. Under normal circumstances, some of these things may of course change pending any requests from Air Traffic Control [ATC], weather, commercial dept. of the airline, such as for example last minute changes in cargo or the number of passengers.
 
Although the standard distance doesn’t usually change; however, with every flight the time taken to fly the same route can change (and therefore the fuel required) could alter, for example it would take longer if you were flying in strong head winds. Airlines require permission to fly through the airspace of each country they pass over. If for any reason you don’t have permission, the route will be altered, and they also try to find the most inexpensive route [compatible in every sense.].

As per the whistleblower captain’s extensive research, he noted that his “aircraft was not equipped with the legal amount of stored breathing oxygen to provide passengers in case there was an emergency descent required over Greenland due to vast stretches of high mountainous terrain throughout the continent”. Furthermore, on the day of that flight the whistleblower captain realized the same held true for other route segments which were passing over high mountainous regions such as the Rockies and some parts of China [ especially Kunming airspace] as well.

"For these leased aircraft, it is not safe and legal to fly over China's high mountainous terrain, especially around the Kunming ZPKM flight information region (FIR, which is Airway A599 and then Airway A581] which contains the Kunming, Lijiang, Dali airspace" said the whistleblower captain. 
 
He noted that “it would have taken a considerable amount of time, which was much more than the capability of Air India’s leased B777-200LR aircraft, which carried only 12 minutes of stored/breathing oxygen on board, to descend to at least an altitude of 10,000 feet or below to prevent passengers from experiencing hypoxia”. 

​Despite the aircraft not being equipped with more than 12 minutes of stored breathing oxygen, the whistleblower captain, while he was still at the crew hotel in San Francisco, noticed the initial flight plan he was presented with was illegal because it required him to fly the Boeing 777-200LR aircraft with less than the minimum legal amount of stored breathing oxygen over high mountainous terrain, especially the route segment over the Rockies.
 
Fearing for the safety of the lives of his passengers and crew, he requested the flight planners at the IFD to provide an alternate flight plan. Almost seven hours went before the flight dispatch team provided him with a flight plan which was legally acceptable.
 
“This highlights gross incompetence on the part of the Air India flight dispatch team, which is supposed to be of assistance to its operations 24/7 and efficiently and timely produce results, such as providing a flight plan even if it requires a change in routing,” said the whistleblower captain.
 
That was to be the whistleblower’s final flight, and since then he claims, “Air India has illegally terminated me without conducting a proper enquiry”.
 
I wonder if the passengers were ever refunded for this flight. I have reached out to Air India’s press office for a comment but have not received a response. 

​Mind you, this is not the first time an Air India flight from San Francisco to India [and vice-versa] has been delayed. On June 6, 2023, Air India flight AI173D from Delhi [DEL] to San Francisco [SFO] carrying 216 passengers and 16 crew on board was diverted to the Magadan port city in far east Russia following a mid-air glitch in one of the Boeing 777-200LR aircraft engines.
 
All passengers and crew were stranded in the port city for two days, and the replacement aircraft ferried them to San Francisco on 8 June. However, the return flight to Mumbai was cancelled. "Air India flight AI180, scheduled to operate from San Francisco (SFO) to Mumbai (BOM) on June 8, 2023, was cancelled due to an unforeseen technical issue," an Air India spokesperson said.

It is a sad state of affairs for an airline that was once known as a world-class luxury brand, especially in the 60s, 70s, and the 80s. By the 1970s Air India had over 10,000 employees in over 50 countries. It was a brand to be reckoned with and had an aura of sheer glamour and excitement. According to the book “Empires of the Sky – The Politics, Contests and Cartels of World Airlines.” by Anthony Sampson, Air India’s founder, the legendary aviator and industrialist J.R.D. Tata was approached to design Singapore Airlines’ inflight services which international travelers speak of highly today. The best of Asian hospitality that Thai Airways and Cathay Pacific are known for today was first embodied by Air India right from the 1950s.

However, things began to deteriorate from the 1990s onwards as competition became fiercer, especially from the Middle Eastern and other Asian carriers. Air India began making heavy losses after merging with the state-owned domestic operator Indian Airlines in 2007. It relied on taxpayer-funded bailouts to stay operational, and since then it has sadly been the butt of jokes for bad quality of service.

​The captain claims he did not refuse to fly, but instead he asked for an alternate route because he was concerned for the safety of the lives of the passengers and crew members.
 
A few details are murky and not clear as mud: why did it take the flight planners almost seven hours to provide the captain with an alternate [legally acceptable] flight plan at San Francisco? [note that airlines are used to operating and working in 24/7 time zones for emergencies like this, and the resources are there for back up support.], has this ever happened before with any other airline?
 
More importantly, what exactly has the DGCA fined Air India for? and under what provision of the law (DCGA Civil Aviation Regulations [CAR])? and why has not the order dated 24th of January 2024 against Air India been made public by DGCA? The whistleblower captain “has not had any replies, even after he has applied under the 2005 Right to Information Act”.
 
The whistleblower captain has also asked [I quote] “Why has the DGCA not publicly disclosed the order copy dated the 24th of January 2024, which imposes a fine on Air India, especially to the whistleblower captain, as he is the complainant?”
 
He further states that “the DGCA have released a press note, which is ambiguous and not specific. This order should have been made public to all the stakeholders to learn from it and understand it from the air safety point of view to implement these safe practices in their airlines and know what not to do”.
 
Another veteran airline captain spoke to me on condition of anonymity and said: “It is important to note that whistleblowers play a crucial role in the fight for accountability and a fairer and safer world, and especially in aviation”.

Since I published my blog yesterday – where I highlighted some unique insights relating to a whistleblower Air India captain, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and who raised concerns with the airline about passenger and aircraft safety [claiming they're flying illegally] – a couple of interesting things have happened.
 
Firstly, we heard that Captain Vivek Chhabra, the Chief Flight Operations Inspector [CFOI] has been fired rather unceremoniously by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
 
Secondly, on top of this, the DGCA fined Air India over US$132,000 for safety violations on some of its ultra-long-haul flights to the US. This has happened, as per my understanding, after an internal investigation carried out by the DGCA. The aviation watchdog slapped the fine on Air India for flouting rules with respect to flights operated on certain long routes over vast stretches of mountainous terrain.

​According to the whistleblower captain "if the DGCA had included the complainant (the whistleblower captain) in the investigation, then no stones would have been left unturned. For reasons best known to the DGCA, they have ensured that the complainant (whistleblower captain) has not been a part of this investigation”.

India's national flag carrier airline, Air India, which is owned by Air India Limited, a Tata Group enterprise, was once known for its lavishly decorated planes and stellar service but its reputation declined in the mid-2000s as financial troubles mounted. When the debt-ridden airline was officially bought by the Tata Group in October 2021, and officially handed over in January 2022, the airline was saved from almost bankruptcy.
 
The Tatas paid nearly US$2.4bn after the government made the terms of the debt less onerous for the buyer. The salt-to-steel conglomerate founded the airline in 1932 before it was taken over by the government in 1953. The handover brought to an end a years-long attempt to sell Air India, which has racked up losses worth over $9.5bn.
 
Under its new owners, the airline is looking to restore its reputation at home and abroad as a world-class carrier with a complete transformation of the brand, and the announcement of 500 aircraft orders to revamp the brand, including unveiling a new logo.

However, it has come to my attention from various credible sources within the airline that Air India continues to suffer from legacy inconsistent service standards, low aircraft utilisation, dismal on-time performance, antiquated productivity norms, lack of revenue generation skills, and most importantly, a failure of international safety standards. Some may argue [though not proven] that there is still the sense of unsatisfactory public perception.

Even at the beginning of this new year, there have been a few viral videos or posts on social media criticising the lack of quality of service. Shreyti Garg, a content creator, recently shared her not-so-great experience on an Air India flight from Delhi to Toronto on Instagram. She expressed her sheer disappointment regarding the in-flight facilities despite the expensive ticket prices totalling approximately over US$5,580 for herself and her two young children. 

In another case in January 2024, a passenger on an Air India flight slammed the airline after it served her non-vegetarian food, despite the packaging being labelled as meat-free. Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, Veera Jain shared images of the in-flight meal she was provided on-board the Calicut-Mumbai flight. "On my Air India flight AI582, I was served a vegetarian meal with chicken pieces in it! I boarded the flight from Calicut airport. This was a flight that was supposed to take off at 18.40 but left the airport at 19.40," Ms. Jain wrote.

As is the case with quite a few legacy airlines, Air India is no stranger to having a history of outdated core platforms, leading to decades-old legacy systems. These systems fail to keep up with customers' needs for speed and advanced functionality, despite continuing to serve their purpose.
 
There would be high expectations from some that, if anything, the Tatas would bring in seamless systems and procedures and above all, world-class aviation safety procedures, which is the pillar on which every airline is built on. With the Tata takeover, it is understandable that things will not improve overnight and it is a challenging task for any global airline, especially with a lot of moving parts globally.
 
With the takeover, Tata inherited multiple aircraft which were grounded due to a lack of maintenance resulting from financial issues. Even though Tata started to inject a lot of money to get aircraft operational [in the region of almost US$400 million to completely refurbish the interiors of its legacy fleet of 43 aircraft]; however, there were, and still are, a lot of supply chain issues related to poor quality seats and In-Flight Entertainment [IFE], which will take time to resolve.
 
However, some veteran staff members in the airline, namely airline pilots, have confidentially expressed concern to me that contrary to popular belief, instead of things steadily improving, they believe the airline is heading into a slow spiral of events that would lead it to go from bad to worse. This, according to these staff members, commences with flouting the much revered Tata Code of Conduct [TCOC].
 
According to a former veteran Air India Captain, who wishes to remain anonymous, "the contracts provided to all Air India staff members after the Tata takeover have been draconian to say the least and in complete violation of their own TCOC guidelines". Safety has taken a back seat since their training facility was suspended for a while, along with the Air Safety Chief by India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation [DGCA] following major lapses.

It is important to note that the DGCA is not an independent body but is a statutory body of the Government of India [GoI] that helps to regulate civil aviation in India. Both the DGCA and the Airports Authority of India [AAI] are subordinate to the ministry. The only difference is that the AAI is an independent authority with its own finances and its chairperson and executive directors are appointed by the Public Enterprises Selection Board [PESB]. DGCA, is, unfortunately, an attached office of the ministry of Civil Aviation with very little financial and non-financial powers.

Thereafter, systemic, and procedural lapses have been quite frequent in the mainstream news. The latest happening in January 2024 of a hard landing incident involving an Air India Airbus A320neo aircraft registered VT-CIQ in Dubai. This was by a captain who was supposedly stood down by an instructor earlier. Thankfully, the aircraft structure held on despite this abuse otherwise hard landings can be highly risky and can damage the aircraft structure and injure passengers. In this case, the instructor was fired for gross negligence.

A particular issue that has come to my attention is of a whistleblower pilot, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and who was fired for reporting a serious safety matter to the airline leadership that he believes is endangering of passengers and crew lives on a daily basis.
 
According to an article in the Economic Times in November 2023, "The Indian civil aviation ministry and the DGCA will look into a complaint filed against Air India by a former senior pilot alleging that the airline operated Boeing 777 planes to the US without having the required system of emergency oxygen supply, according to sources. The pilot, who had served as a Boeing 777 commander, complained about the practice to the ministry and the DGCA on October 29."
 
If the whistleblower pilot is correct, then it is quite concerning that the DGCA hasn't done anything since November 2023 and are basically sitting on a strong piece of evidence. According to information from Air India sources, the chief flight operations inspector of the DGCA has a conflict of interest in this investigation since his spouse flies the same aircraft as a captain in Air India. The Economic Times article further states that an Air India spokesperson says, "The matter in question is multi-dimensional and has already been examined by Air India and external experts."

As far as I am aware, Air India have refused to comment any further and said their foremost priority is the safety of the airline's passengers and crew, and there is no compromise on that safety. If that is the case, then why have they fired the experienced pilot? What have they got to hide if the facts are there? You would assume that if someone within a company has reported an error or some issue to their superiors, that they would be highly praised for that rather than being made an outcast and punished for challenging unsafe procedures. That too, without a proper enquiry.
 
Instead of discussing and correcting the safety issue they chose to cover it up and terminate the services of the pilot. In a novel I once read, one character says to another "...if you get on the wrong side of senior officers, they take it out of you in other ways." He was referring to the army, but I guess it is true anywhere, sadly.

It seems, going by what quite a lot of aviation experts have said, and the amount of data I have at hand - including aircraft manuals I have seen - that every aircraft has a certification for its supplementary passenger oxygen systems. Every aircraft has oxygen systems designed to provide oxygen to overhead masks in the event of cabin depressurization. For the Boeing 777-200LR aircraft, oxygen can be supplied for approximately 12 minutes, per passenger, as it is chemically generated. During the descent process, due to the depressurization event, the aircraft must descend to 10,000 feet within this 12-minute period. At this altitude, the ambient environment becomes acceptable under those given conditions just for survival.
 
Nevertheless, when aircraft are normally flying at their cruise altitudes over vast stretches of mountainous terrain, which are usually above 8,000 feet in elevation, they need to commence their descent to 10,000 feet as soon as the depressurization event occurs. However, they can descend to an altitude of 10,000 feet or below once they have passed beyond the mountainous terrain and reach areas of obstacles with elevation of 8,000 feet or below. Therefore, for certain routes, more than 12 minutes of oxygen is required to be supplied to the passengers and crew to clear the mountainous terrain.

The airline's older Boeing 777 aircraft are equipped with an oxygen system, which is of a gaseous type to supply the passengers, and these aircraft are routinely deployed on routes to Europe and most routes to the US. However, the concern is that more recently, Air India has introduced additional Boeing 777-200LR aircraft, leased from Delta Air Lines, that are equipped with chemically generated oxygen systems which last approximately 12 minutes and these are not suitable for certain segments of the routes regularly flown between India and San Francisco [SFO]. Five Boeing 777-200LR aircraft were leased by Air India, and the registrations of these affected aircraft are:

VT-AEG [Named Kerala. Shown in the image above. MSN 30440. Ex reg N706DN]
VT-AEE [MSN 29739. Ex. reg N704DK]
VT-AEF [Named Jharkhand. MSN 29741. Ex reg N702DN]
VT-AEH [Named Alok. MSN 39091. Ex reg N707DN]
VT-AEI [Named Uday. MSN 39254. Ex reg N708DN]

These five aircraft have been flying for well over a year and are still flying on routes which legally require more stored breathing oxygen supply. Since the whistleblower pilot has been illegally terminated and a precedent has been set therefore the learned captains are knowingly piloting these flights on the India-SFO routes which turn into 'flying coffins' on certain segments, all because of the fear of getting terminated.

Besides this, it breaks the law of the land, as per the DGCA's CIVIL AVIATION REQUIREMENTS, SECTION 8 -, SERIES'O', PART II, dated 30.10.2018, each time one of those leased Boeing 777-200LR aircraft takes flight between India and SFO. I wouldn't want to hear of a plane landing with more than 350 dead passengers from the lack of oxygen.
 
According to the above mentioned DGCA Civil Aviation Requirement [CAR], on paragraph 4.3.9.2 it clearly states [I quote]: "A flight to be operated with a pressurised aeroplane shall not be commenced unless a sufficient quantity of stored breathing oxygen is carried to supply all the crew members and passengers as is appropriate to the circumstances of the flight being undertaken, in the event of loss of pressurisation, for any period that the atmospheric pressure in any compartment occupied by them would be less than 700hPa."
 
The law of the land clearly necessitates that in case of a depressurization event while the aircraft is descending to 10,000 feet, as per the procedure prescribed in the manuals and standard operating procedure, there should be enough stored breathing oxygen. This should be continuously supplied to all passengers and crew members until the aircraft reaches an altitude of 10,000 feet, which corresponds to pressure level of 700hpa in the International Standard Atmosphere [ISA].

This is a very serious matter because if the aircraft experiences a rapid depressurisation over mountainous terrain, then passengers will instantly get into a state of hypoxia, once the 12 minutes supply of oxygen depletes before the aircraft can reach 10,000 feet above sea level. The caution by the whistleblower pilot if ignored endangers the life of approximately 350 passengers and the crew in the cabin of the aircraft on a daily basis.
 
We should never see a situation where safety is compromised, and profits are seen as priority because that can have catastrophic consequences. Air India, an airline that is desperately trying its best to reimagine and transform its image globally to become a truly world-class airline that can rival the likes of Emirates, Qatar, Singapore Airlines etc. should take note of this quite seriously.

Surely any leader of an airline should not be resting on their laurels, knowing that there are flights operating at this very moment which lack vital safety equipment for passengers and are violating the privileges of the license given by the government known as Air Operators Certificate on a daily basis just to improve their company's profits.
 
Therefore, it would be one of the worst disasters waiting to happen in aviation history. In a developed country, with good democratic practices supported by pilots' unions this would have resulted in the grounding of the aircraft fleet or a change of the routes rather than shooting the messenger who should have been rewarded for bringing out a safety lapse. With the exponential growth Indian aviation is slated to record in this decade, I hope better sense prevails with the aviation authorities and the airline.
 
Another example we have seen recently is on January 11 when an Air Cote d'Ivoire flight turned around just minutes after leaving the Gambian capital Banjul.
 
The Gambia football team travelling to Ivory Coast for the upcoming 2023 Africa Cup of Nations "could have died" during a flight that was aborted, claimed coach Tom Saintfiet. Saintfiet believes there was a lack of oxygen, saying conditions prompted many of the delegation to fall asleep. The coach praised quick thinking by the pilot for keeping his team safe.
 
Saintfiet told BBC Sport Africa: "The local crew said there was a problem with the air conditioning before we took off but that it would be all fine when we took off. After a few minutes, it was very hot in the plane. We all fell asleep because there was a lack of oxygen - some of the players couldn't be woken up. The pilot noticed and we had to return."
 
"People got headaches and if the flight had gone on for another 30 minutes, the whole team would have died. The strange thing is that the oxygen masks didn't come out - it's good that the pilot realised that this was a deadly situation and so turned back. But we are still in shock."
 
This lack of oxygen can lead to fatalities in seconds. The airline's management will need to take quick decisions to rectify and make sure that such an incident does not occur on those long-haul flights operated by the Boeing 777. I shudder to think of a nation whose aviation industry is experiencing the fastest growth percentage in the world at 20% per year is playing with fire.

Time to go back to Shanghai (via Hong Kong)...def will beat DHL to get my parcel to the British Embassy- as that would have taken 3 days...quickest turnaround...12 hours of running around London getting errands done (including a quickfire shopping trip to Harrods) and 8 hours of bliss sleep thanks to a great book by James (read his book...perfect for long-haul flights and short stopovers!). Ciao London...

Like the rest of the world, I first heard about the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 tragedy on the morning of the 8th of March. A simple message on my phone from a friend who lives in Shenzhen appeared: 'a Malaysia Airlines plane en-route to PEK is presumed crashed with 239 people on-board'. I was shocked (and still am shocked). The flight was code-shared with China Southern Airlines as CZ748. I could have been on that plane had I taken that route to Beijing. It could have been anyone of us. I frantically started browsing through the various news channels to get more updates. There was nothing any of the news updates could report except that a plane was lost...it was totally bewildering. To not get a word out was very disconcerting and unusual (and still is)…'How could a sophisticated and modern Boeing 777-200 aircraft at 35,000 feet get lost around an hour after take-off in this modern-tech age?' The plane's radar transponder (which provides a ‘squawk code’ that enables ATC to track it’s movements on radar), and VHF radio link were mysteriously disabled around an hour after take-off and no one knew where the plane was or where it was heading.

Since that day, the world's attention has been focused with great interest on this lost plane and its 239 passengers and crew (12 crew members and 227 passengers from 15 nations and regions; the majority of passengers were Chinese citizens). One probably cannot even imagine the horror that the relatives and families of those on-board the aircraft are going through. I do believe that the media has been too intrusive and sometimes have gone over the top when focusing on the families. Being a journalist I know very well that photographers may have to get pictures of the grieving families to please their editors, as those pictures earn them their bread and butter (sadly..), however I don't want to or have to look at them. Not only is it bad taste, but also disrespectful and wrong in my opinion. I believe that in some media reports it was confirmed that family members even scuffled with the media scrum, asking them to stop taking photos of grieving relatives.  

We are now led to believe that it has apparently crashed in the far reaches of the southern Indian Ocean. However, that being said, this case is still a mystery...and the truth, when we finally find and recover the wreckage (I believe they will), will be even more surprising and shocking as some of the theories that have been put forward.

There have been many theories relating to the plane’s disappearance, some of them perfectly valid, and some of them completely absurd and unbelievable. For three weeks, friends and relatives of those on-board have been hoping for news - any news- of the wreckage of the plane- but nothing so far has come out. This has understandably caused a sheer amount of frustration, anger, and complete mistrust with the airline and the Malaysian government by the relatives of those on-board this ill-fated flight.

Theories…Theories…And Yet More Theories (but no solid facts)

Whenever there is a situation like this involving a plane crash (or presumed plane crash etc), I tend not to watch the TV news reports too much because there are too many conflicting arguments to and fro, and without being disrespectful to anyone I can say that there are far too many ‘aviation experts’ and journalists alike all proposing their own theories. Second-guessing and speculation does no good and is of no value to nobody. I don't believe in conspiracy theories because they make little sense. It is better to wait until either the wreckage of the aircraft is found - which has not happened at the time of writing this blog. 

Again, no offense intended to anyone, but you just wonder how on earth did some of these journalists become 'aviation experts' when some of them cannot even distinguish an aircraft type and they conjure up their own theories? Who gave them that title? It doesn't look good...and with all due respect even some airline pilots would not call themselves 'aviation experts'...they may be very good travel journalists who have reviewed luxury hotels, airlines etc....but lets not promote them or brand them as being an 'aviation expert'. I am not an aviation expert...that honorable title should be given to someone with a serious amount of technical knowledge about aviation, such as, for example, Flight Global's safety expert David Learmount and independent aviation expert Chris Yates. Both of them are highly admired within the industry. Then there are plenty of aviation experts at Boeing, Airbus, NASA etc. 

Some of the theories that have been mentioned by many experts include: 1. Uncontrollable fire on-board or decompression of the aircraft cabin, 2. A bomb, 3. Pilot suicide, 4. Accidental shoot down, 5. Over speed, manual recovery stuff-up, stall, loss of complete control. 6. Midair collision, 7. Hijacking

Theories 1 and 5. could be plausible as 95% of crashes happen around 8 nautical miles either side of the airport below 3,000 feet and around 95% of aircraft fires happen in the first TWO hours of a flight (these are facts proven and well-known in the aviation industry). Airline pilots are rigorously trained during every simulator check (every 6 months) to realize quickly that the fire is uncontrollable, and then dive for the ground as quickly as possible before the wing burns through and find the nearest airport to land at (if possible)- all under 20 minutes. However, ditching any plane in the dark (this plane disappeared at around 01:20am) is not easy, and especially when you are flying at around 300 kph.

In the initial stages of the investigation, the only real evidence available to the public was the visual observation from an oil rig worker, a New Zealander called Mike McKay. He noted in his e-mail report (which was issued publicly as shown below), that he saw flames start, and go out, at altitude near where the Vietnamese radar trace concluded. An experienced Captain I know commented that his initial reactions upon reading this report ‘led him to assume a wing separation because of over-stressing of the airframe in an apparent recovery attempt from a stall and then an eventual uncontrollable spin straight into the sea.’ That particular Captain went on to say: ‘I figured the lack of debris due to the aircraft going straight-in, and compressing the 777 to the size of a bus.’ Nobody has publicly discounted Mr. McKay’s report, and there has been no proof so far…but yet more anguish and frustration for the families and relatives of the ones on-board the aircraft.

There were also many reports about the aircraft being picked-up on radar west of the Malay Peninsula. Nevertheless, the Chief of Royal Malaysian Air Force in a media statement rejected these unconfirmed reports on the 11th March (please see below)* 

It is difficult to believe theories 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7. This is because there is no proof of any such bomb, and no terrorist group from anywhere has claimed responsibility or any demand for ransom for hijacking (from past cases we have seen that terrorists and hijackers usually cannot help taking responsibility…). 

Initially there were suspicions of terrorism or hijacking based on reports that two Iranian passengers boarded the flight with fake passports; however, it was eventually revealed that they were just after a better life in Europe. There would have been a clear demand from someone if this plane was held on ransom. A recent example of this was displayed on the 17th February earlier this year when an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767 was hijacked by it's own First Officer and flown to Geneva. The hijacker, identified by officials as First Officer Hailemedehin Abera Tagegn, waited for his Captain to go to the toilet before locking himself in the cockpit. As with all hijacking events in history, we saw that the hijacker did contact someone to demand something- asylum in this case. However, in the case of Malaysia Airlines MH370 nobody contacted anyone.

Having spoken to some airline pilots, and listened to their theories from experience, I am led to understand that it may have been a fire on-board (smoke kills within a few minutes….quicker than we all think...and especially at high altitude). At some point, after its crew and passengers surrendered and become incapacitated by smoke, the aircraft would have been flying all by itself, and would have eventually gone down into the Indian Ocean once it ran out of fuel.

If the plane was in the cruise on auto-pilot for so many hours without human intervention (as people claim now)...can we say that it's a miracle that it did not collide with another aircraft?...shockingly sad, utterly heartbreaking and scary to think that a 'ghost' plane was flying in the sky with incapacitated people on board...terrible. The answer from a highly experienced Captain with over 28 years flying service was: ‘The sky is enormous, you'd be hard pressed to hit another aircraft…even if you tried it would not work….’

However, the investigation and interrogation by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) and Inmarsat plc, the British satellite telecommunications company, has been verified and accepted. The investigators from that company now confirm a Southern Indian Ocean trajectory and loss of signal. We have to respect that they have enough information to make that call. At this point in time, you can’t help but wonder why they (the investigators) did not dispatch a couple of long-range reconnaissance aircraft, that could have photographed the whole hemisphere by now, from over 50-60,000 feet, and with minute detail.

Inmarsat sell auxiliary satellite bandwidth to airlines and shipping companies (passenger and freight), so they can provide constant movement connectivity anywhere on Earth. According to the company, around 90% of the world's wide-bodied jets come installed with Inmarsat antennas built in to the fuselage – whether or not the airline operating the plane ultimately uses it. Now, even though Malaysia Airlines did not use it for technical data transmission, nevertheless, the technology has been tremendously useful in the search operation. For the search teams’ time and the treacherous weather in the Indian Ocean are their biggest enemies at the moment because the battery of the ‘pinger’ from the aircraft’s black box is going to stop sending out signals soon.

As well as the relatives of those who were on flight MH370, thoughts are also with the searchers. There's a LOT of ocean to cover (much of it the deepest in the world, and undiscovered so far), and every one of those searches are doing the best they can. The air and sea search efforts have been shifting throughout this case, and have recently shifted yet again as fresh radar data suggested the aircraft headed south faster than initially thought, bringing the plane down some 1,100 kilometres north-east of the previous search area, putting the crash point 1,800 kilometers off Perth, Australia. One thing is for sure, this investigation also reveals the large amount of rubbish that is lurking around in our oceans (!).

It could have been accidentally shot-down by either the Malaysians or the Vietnamese…however, who would want to practice firing missiles at 2 a.m.?!; and when it seems that hardly anyone of the Military installations actually noticed the aircraft? Unless there are some issues that have not been monitored with the mental pilots health, no sane commercial airline pilot carrying passengers would even think of entering another country’s airspace - especially knowing that they have a military Air Force - without permission. You can bet your bottom dollar that the minute a civilian (or military) aircraft enters another country’s airspace without permission, then a bunch of air force fighter jets would be scrambled to get close and personal within minutes!

In regards to reports that some villagers in the Maldives saw a plane flying low doesn't sound plausible to me. No offense but anything bigger than a seaplane would seem 'big' to the people there because most of them have probably never seen a plane of that size. Anybody...and I mean ANYBODY...who has seen the only airport in the Maldives (i.e. Male Airport) large enough to take a Boeing 777 knows that you can't hide a plane of that size anywhere on that place. The airport, just like the islands around it, is TINY...the 777 would stick out like a sore thumb! 

The plane would not be able to hide anywhere, even on a remote airfield. Why? Because it would have to go over land masses and it would easily have been captured on primary radar operated by the military. As I mentioned above that nobody can enter another country's airspace without being detected by the air defense zone radars.

It could have been pilot suicide. However, all the commercial pilots I have spoken to have told me that it is highly unlikely that the pilot would have committed suicide. In the entire history of commercial aviation, only 4 airline pilots have been documented to have committed suicide during flight…this includes: Silk Air 185, Egyptair 990, LAM Mozambique 470, and Royal Air Maroc 630. It’s a very privileged career where individuals spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and many years to get trained, and are being regularly examined every 3-6 months for simulator training, in-flight checks, and health checks. It must take a very mentally disturbed and sick individual to take his and others lives with him on a plane. 

No sane pilot wants to die or kill anyone..or even think of such idiotic things. Pilots have the moral duty of taking ownership and responsibility to save lives FIRST before anything in an emergency- safety is everything in aviation. Unless there is concrete evidence that this pilot committed suicide, it's a very difficult theory to accept and swallow. 

The Boeing 777 aircraft has an exceedingly impressive safety record – the first fatal crash in its 19-year history only came in July 2013, when an Asiana Airlines (read about it here) aircraft crash landed short of the runway at San Francisco International Airport. Three of the 307 people aboard died. Besides the Asiana Airlines crash, the only other serious incident with the Boeing 777 came in January 2008 when a British Airways B777-200 landed short of the southern runway at London’s Heathrow airport without any serious casualties.

Brand Malaysia Airlines Damaged?

As the saying goes in PR that ‘any publicity, is good publicity’…however there is question in this case when it comes to a sad and tragic event like this. 'If you love life, don't fly with Malaysia Airlines!!' shouted one relative of a passenger on ‪#‎MH370 as the Malaysian PM gave the news conference...at that point you would have thought that the Airline and the Government had shot themselves in their own foot (the above quote taken from twitter). 

According to a friend who flies the Airbus A330, there is a saying in the aviation industry that if an airline is on the front pages for more than TWO weeks, then it's bound for failure. If that statement is true then Malaysia Airlines may be history. However, I think that the airline may survive this bad episode because: 1. It's the national flag carrier of Malaysia, and 2. Malaysia Airlines is strongly financially backed by the Malaysian government and Penerbangan Malaysia Berhad. The airline may be struggling (it has been some time), however I am optimistic that Malaysia Airlines will eventually bounce back in the future. They may initially reduce the fares and go for a heavily tempting PR campaign to increase interest, OR the worst-case scenario may be that it could be taken into the hands of a low-cost carrier, such as Tony Fernandes’ Air Asia (though the latter statement may not be plausible).

Bear in mind that national flag carriers have gone bust in the past (Olympic Airways, Sabena Belgian Airlines, Swiss Air (before it was re-branded), VIASA Venezuelan Airlines, VARIG Brazilian, Balkan Bulgarian, MALEV Hungarian and many others), however it must be noted that these airlines were not provided strong financial support by their own financially struggling governments. It must also be noted that some major airlines have gone bust after experiencing disasters. Prime examples include Pan Am (after the Lockerbie disaster), TWA 800, and Swiss 111. However, in these respects, Malaysia Airlines is fortunate to have solid support from their government.

I firmly believe that until any concrete evidence has been presented, then those Malaysia Airlines crew and passengers should be hailed as heroes for trying to save the plane from disaster, but were unable to do so for whatever reason (fire…most likely considering what’s been presented). It’s not good of the tabloid newspaper editors for writing articles that may be deemed untrue and certainly not good to mislead their readers without any facts or proof.

While the families are understandably upset with the airline and the Malaysian government, it must be noted that the airline is just an observer that is passing the information from the investigators to the public. And in this case we have investigators and search teams from around 25 countries, so therefore the ability to communicate effectively and coordinate together as ONE team in a smooth fashion is absolutely crucial. There is not much an airline can do once an investigation starts except keep the media and families of the crew and passengers informed , and therefore it is obviously causing friction because the public are not getting much information from the airline or the government. The airline’s role and credibility is measured by how they treat the families, and how they handle the media. The one good thing this has revealed is the frightfully negligent way we have approved airplane safety, particularly design of black box.

Without any doubt whatsoever, we have seen ourselves on the TV screens in the past three weeks that the airline has mishandled the media (and vice-versa), and that comes across bad from any PR prospect. It just shows that the airline may have not been prepared for such an event. Perhaps this would be an excellent learning curve for all other airlines around the world too. They key word here is ‘investigation’- and so the airline cannot really do much except wait for the investigators to complete their job. When an aviation disaster happens, the airline and the management team of the airline are mere observers, and wait for what the investigators come out with.

The airline has no doubt one of the best in-flight products in the industry. I fondly recall the words of Mr. Martin Barrow -former non-executive director of Malaysia Airlines- inviting me some years ago to try their product: 'Why don't you try MAS, Navjot? Best cabin crew in the world'. Nevertheless, far fetched from reality, the airline is going through some tough times indeed. 

A week ago when the families vented their angry and frustration during one of the chaotic press conferences, the only words I could think of were: complete madness...completely diabolical...too many 'aviation experts/cooks' in the kitchen...too much clutter/confusion...too much media intrusion around the grieving families...too many theories. We can only hope that the relatives will have some news soon on what exactly happened to their loved ones in their final moments. The one good thing this event revealed is the frightfully negligent way we have approved airplane safety, particularly the design of the black box.

It's a mystery that not one piece of the plane has been found. It's a truly amazing situation the aviation industry has found themselves in - though I do believe that it may take time before we find something. When people point to the size of the aircraft, the answer to that is simple: the aircraft is not big at all. In fact it's probably the size of one bottle cap in a large sea. If it went straight into the ocean then it would have turned immediately into a metal box perhaps the size of a small bus...especially if it went in nose first, at speed...and everything else would have sadly been either vaporised or turned into minute shrapnel pieces. 

Until concrete evidence is presented, I, like many others, believe that we should not label the crew on that plane as terrorists, suicidal, or anything else negative...but as heroes who were frantically trying to get the plane safely back on the ground but could not do so. 

_______________________________________________________________________________

* a version of this article also appeared on the Huffington Post blog: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/navjot-singh/post_7222_b_5056524.html

My sincere thanks to my friends and colleagues, many of whom are professionals in the aviation industry and are touched by this case, and who contributed with their thoughts to this article. - Navjot Singh

*The Royal Malaysia Air Force has rejected the media reports that it tracked the Boeing 777 after it turned west in a statement posted on its Facebook page and reproduced in full below.

(This statement could be read as confirming the substance of the reports, that the RMAF did in fact follow MH370 as reported.)

OFFICIAL STATEMENT BY CHIEF OF ROYAL MALAYSIAN AIR FORCE ON BERITA HARIAN NEWS ARTICLE DATED 11th MARCH 2014 ON SEARCH AND RESCUE OPERATIONS IN THE STRAITS OF MALACCA

1. I refer to the Berita Harian news article dated 11th March 2014 on Search and Rescue Operations in the Straits of Malacca which (in Bahasa Malaysia) referred to me as making the following statements: The RMAF Chief confirmed that RMAF Butterworth airbase detected the location signal of the airliner as indicating that it turned back from its original heading to the direction of Kota Bahru, Kelantan, and was believed to have pass through the airspace of the East Coast of and Northern Peninsular Malaysia. The last time the plane was detected by the air control tower was in the vicinity of Pulau Perak in the Straits of Malacca at 2.40 in the morning before the signal disappeared without any trace, he said.

2. I wish to state that I did not make any such statements as above, what occurred was that the Berita Harian journalist asked me if such an incident occurred as detailed in their story, however I did not give any answer to the question, instead what I said to the journalist was “Please refer to the statement which I have already made on 9 March 2014, during the press conference with the Chief of Defence Force at the Sama-Sama Hotel, Kuala Lumpur International Airport”.

3. What I stated during that press conference was, The RMAF has not ruled out the possibility of an air turn back on a reciprocal heading before the aircraft vanished from the radar and this resulted in the Search and Rescue Operations being widen to the vicinity of the waters of Pulau Pinang.

4. I request this misreporting be amended and corrected to prevent further misinterpretations of what is clearly an inaccurate and incorrect report.

5. Currently the RMAF is examining and analyzing all possibilities as regards to the airliner’s flight paths subsequent to its disappearance. However, for the time being, it would not be appropriate for the RMAF to issue any official conclusions as to the aircraft’s flight path until a high amount of certainty and verification is achieved. However all ongoing search operations are at the moment being conducted to cover all possible areas where the aircraft could have gone down in order to ensure no possibility is overlooked.

6. In addition, I would like to state to the media that all information and developments will be released via official statements and press conferences as soon as possible and when appropriate. Our current efforts are focused upon on finding the aircraft as soon as possible.

Thank You

GENERAL TAN SRI DATO’SRI RODZALI BIN DAUD RMAF

Chief of Royal Malaysian Air Force

Released On:

11 March 14 Kuala Lumpur

On the morning of the 6th of July 2013 just past 11.28am local time, a Boeing 777-200ER belonging to South Korea's Asiana Airlines (flight number OZ214) carrying 307 passengers and crew, crash landed while on approach onto San Francisco International Airport's Runway 28L.

Whenever a plane crash happens, second guessing and pure rumors or any other speculation does no good and is of no value to anyone - even to professional journalists who work for Broadsheets - trust me on that one!. It can be extremely irritating (and distressing for passengers relatives), when people on the likes of Twitter, Facebook, PPRune, Airliners.net, Jetphotos.net and Fox News' etc. go about with their so called 'aviation experts', spewing historical events and their own takes on what could have gone wrong. I prefer to wait until either the wreckage is examined/investigation in complete or the NTSB is notified. It's one of the reasons that I don't turn on the TV at these times but rely on concrete factual information for journalists from informed media such as FT.com and the BBC.

The weather was reported as very good; the latest METAR reported light wind, 10 miles (16 km) visibility, with no precipitation, and no forecast or reports of wind shear. The pilots performed a visual approach assisted by the runway's precision approach path indicator (PAPI).

The landing gear and then the tail struck the seawall that projects into San Francisco Bay. Both engines and the tail section separated from the aircraft. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) noted that the main landing gear, the first part of the aircraft to hit the seawall, "separated cleanly from [the] aircraft as designed". The vertical and both horizontal stabilizers fell on the runway before the threshold.

The remainder of the fuselage and wings rotated (yawed) counter-clockwise 330 degrees as it slid westward. Video showed it pivoting about a wing and the nose while sharply inclined to the ground. It came to rest to the left of the runway, 2,400 feet (730 m) from the initial point of impact at the seawall. 

Out of the 291 passengers and 16 crew, sadly 3 passengers died, and 181 passengers suffered serious but non-fatal injuries. Out of the three who lost their lives, two were named as Ms. Ye Mengyuan and Ms. Wang Linjia, both Chinese nationals, and both 16-year-old middle school students from China's eastern Zhejiang province. They were seated at the rear of the plane and their bodies were found on the tarmac. The third passenger died of her injuries several days later at hospital. At the request of her immediate family, her name and the extent of her injuries were not published. Among the injured were three flight attendants who were thrown onto the runway while still strapped in their seats when the tail section broke off after striking the seawall short of the runway.

Now, on that note a point about the photos of the crash and the relatives going around on Twitter etc. (especially the UK Daily Mail, and other tabloids), that can be so ridiculous. OK, photographers may have to get pics of the grieving families to keep their Editors happy ..BUT I don't want to OR have to look at them. It's just sick. RIP to those who have died. You can tell when the stupidity at The UK Daily Mail has reached new heights when they write false stories in order to get their readership high. The Editor has been trying to pretend that his rag is NOT a tabloid (heaven forbid) by spilling stories over the gutter in an effort to win a design competition at his local school. He should give up & just use the tabloid tricks that were developed by experts.

The Boeing 777, like ALL American built aircraft (except the 787 Deamliner - now dubbed the 'nightmareliner' because of its high number of faults) is a very reliable and strong aircraft- the Boeing 777s are the aviation's equivalent of the John Deer Tractor, you can throw anything at them and not a single whisker in sight will damage them. 

This was the Boeing 777's first fatal accident, and second crash (previous: British Airways Flight 38 in 2008), and third hull loss since the Boeing 777 began operating commercially in 1995.

It's a well known fact in the industry that around 95% of aircraft crashes happen 8 nautical miles either side of the airport below 3000 feet. 95% of aircraft fires happen in the first two hours. The fix is, when realizing it is uncontrollable, dive for the ground before the wing burns through. Record aloft is below 25 mins.

Below is video animation showing the comparison between the actual flight path taken by flight OZ214 into San Francisco's Runway 28L, and what the correct flight path should have looked like. 

The video is a testament to a brilliantly-built aircraft; designed and modelled entirely on computers in the early 1990s. The video shows what happens if you can use the fuselage to dissipate the energy, then the landing gear and the engines shear off at extreme speed, as designed. Unlike steel, aluminium doesn't produce sparks like steel does.

An experienced Airline pilot with over 28 years in the cockpit, who did not wish to be named, told me (I quote):

'It's long been the Airbus philosophy that "if the aircraft is not doing what you want (for ANY reason) disconnect the automatics and fly it manually at once". That works well in airlines where you have a wealth of basic Visual Flight Rules (VFR) flying skills to fall-back on. Sadly, with the death of general aviation around the world, there are many countries where pilots don't have that background. It's why Airbus has increased the endorsement program from 9 simulators to 13. Airbus now teaches people to fly each model visually with all systems working normally (especially after what happened with the Air France 447 crash). Who would have thought it would come to this? Many of us. Predicting that, one day, each pilot would have to pass a test of knowledge to survive. At Aviation Theory Centre in the early 90s I ran a series of lectures explaining that our books taught "To Pass The Test - Not Just The Exam". Sadly most theory centres just teach the syllabus and no more.'

Another airline pilot gave me this account of an aircraft coming in too LOW into Dubai Airport a few days after the Asiana Airlines crash happened (I won't name the pilot who gave me this credible report):

'Blood ran cold today. 28 years of flying and never heard this from an APProach controller: 

APP: "XXXXX (an indian carrier) Are you too low? I have you at 800 feet!" [now, he usually transfers to TWR at about 5 miles (1500 feet) so there is no reason to be at that level on Approach.]

XXXX: after long silence "XXXX going around" 

APP: "XXXX are you climbing? I still have you below radar lowest safe!" 

XXXX: " We are climbing through 1,500, can we make a visual circuit?" (this is how Gulf Air crashed an A320 and the clever controller decided to take it out of his hands...)

APP: "Climb to 4000 feet and make left turn to 030." (Thereby saving the day, he never even answered the query for a visual approach.)

How, you ask? Well the QNH was 994mb and 500 feet lower than the std of 1013. Setting the altimeter from high (1013) to a low number winds OFF altitude. Old Pilots say: "High to Low LOOKOUT below!" I bet the XXXX boys still had 1013mb set'.
'
The below presentation, ('Children of Magenta'), provides a wealth of experience and advice for pilots of new-generation airliners (especially 787, A380, and A350). When in doubt: Disconnect automation, fall back on your flying skills and FLY THE AIRCRAFT. 

HOWEVER, the problem is: what if you a crew who have no experience in hand-flying aircraft, no raw flying experience to fall back-on (as those Asiana 214, and Air France 447 pilots)? 

One of my mates, an experienced Captain for Emirates, says: 'Always make sure YOU are flying the aeroplane, and that IT'S not flying you. Sadly, this brilliant instructor has passed away. He'd be rolling in his grave if he knew that there are thousands of pilots currently flying airliners who have never had such a background.'.

Flying is not the same as it just to be back in the 1980s and even early 1990s- it's not as glamorous as it used to be...and even more importantly safety is plummeting these days. Did you know Singapore have fired ALL their expats since this accident at SFO? The week before this Asiana crash, a Singapore Airlines B777 did a go around on the same runway after doing the exact same thing…with a 777 full of passengers. That - in the 90s - would have been inconceivable!.

When you have 300 passengers behind you, there is no room for failure, and it's dangerous to just depend on the Autopilot. No doubt, the Asiana Airlines crew were invited for a not-so polite chat over a tea session in Washington...no biscuits though.