Flying with Faults: A Pilot’s Perspective on Media, Maintenance, and Misconceptions

The recent Air India Boeing 787 accident in Ahmadabad, which occurred yesterday, has once again thrust aviation into the media spotlight - unfortunately in a familiar and frustratingly superficial way. Almost immediately after the incident, headlines began swirling: speculations about dual engine failure, mechanical problems, theories involving pilot error, and even resurfaced maintenance reports from months prior. As a former general aviation pilot, I’ve watched this coverage unfold with growing concern. The rush to judgment, often driven more by the need for clicks than clarity, reflects a deeper misunderstanding of how aviation safety really works - and it erodes public trust in a system that, in truth, functions with remarkable precision and accountability.

In my own flying days, operating less sophisticated GA aircraft, technical snags were not uncommon. We didn’t have the luxury of triple-redundant systems, advanced onboard diagnostics, or real-time support from a maintenance control center. But we did have training, checklists, judgment, and procedures. A fuel gauge might read erratically. A transponder might flicker. You’d note the issue, evaluate the risk, consult maintenance if needed, and press on - provided everything was within legal and safety parameters. And this wasn’t a gamble; it was disciplined, regulated aviation.

Airliners, like the 787 involved in the Ahmadabad incident, follow the same principle on a vastly more advanced scale. Central to this is the MEL - the Minimum Equipment List. It details exactly which systems may be inoperative and under what conditions an aircraft may still be dispatched. It is a legally binding, regulator-approved framework rooted in rigorous engineering and safety analysis. So when some media outlets began questioning why the Air India aircraft “hadn’t been grounded” based on a maintenance entry from months ago, it betrayed a profound ignorance of airline operations. Faults don’t get ignored; they get managed - systematically, and under constant oversight.

What’s more concerning is the circus of speculation that often follows such accidents. Within hours of the Ahmedabad event, theories popped up across social media and in news commentary: inadvertent flap retraction, gear issues, loss of engine power, or RAT (Ram Air Turbine) deployment. One so-called expert claimed to hear the RAT’s distinct whine in a video; others pointed out that it was nowhere to be seen. Such conflicting takes are not surprising - without access to the flight data recorder, cockpit voice recorder, or maintenance logs, all of it is conjecture. But when even experts disagree so wildly, and when those theories are parroted by the media without caveat, the result is a distorted public narrative that often unfairly tarnishes pilots, airlines, or even the aircraft itself.

I’ve flown with imperfect systems, and I’ve seen how airmanship, not equipment alone, defines safety. Aircraft - especially complex machines like the Dreamliner - are not expected to be flawless. They are built to tolerate faults. They are designed with backups, fail-safes, and robust procedures to ensure safety even when something doesn’t go according to plan. That’s not negligence. That’s engineering.

And yet, the media too often seems to equate technical history with guilt. As if the presence of a past snag is proof of recklessness. It's not. If anything, it shows the transparency and depth of aircraft maintenance tracking. Every small discrepancy is recorded and addressed - something that would be unimaginable in most other industries.

The real problem here is impatience. Investigations take time - often many months - because they must be thorough, data-driven, and impartial. But in a media landscape addicted to immediacy, speculation fills the void where facts have yet to emerge. That not only misleads the public but undermines confidence in professionals who, day after day, uphold aviation’s extraordinary safety record.

I don’t claim to know exactly what happened in Ahmedabad. None of us do - not yet. But I do know that rushing to conclusions helps no one. Flying has always involved managing known risks - not eliminating every imperfection. And safety is not about having a flawless machine; it’s about having trained, disciplined people making good decisions within a structured system.

As a former pilot, I learned to trust that system - even when I had to lean on it. What aviation needs right now is not more blame, but more understanding. Fewer knee-jerk headlines, and more informed patience. Because in aviation, as in life, answers worth trusting take time to surface. And when they do, they often reveal not a single failure - but a complex story of humans and machines working together in an imperfect, but profoundly safe, world.