The Air India Crash
While all airline crashes send a shudder through the soul, a combination of factors have meant that this week’s Ahmedabad disaster was particularly tragic. The fact that the whole flight was caught on camera, the swiftness of the plunge to the ground, and the way that it involved the flagship Dreamliner of Boeing all made this an event that will be long etched in the memory.
It is almost as if in 2025 in an era of artificial intelligence, we almost feel that we are beyond technology failing us. Of course, it is known that statistically most crashes are due to pilot error, and we have the wait to find out exactly what happened. From the footage itself we have had thousands of armchair pilots delivering their views on social media and presumably this will continue to be the case until we get all the facts.
However, for the flight apparently to be caught just too late to abandon take-off and, too soon to get fully airborne does at least on asuperficial view give the impression of a one in one in a million example of bad luck. And this will probably be the case for all future accidents given the way that aircraft and systems in place are designed to eliminate as many obvious causes of disaster, as well as all the freak ones.
Historically what happens in such occasions is that the finger is pointed at the manufacturer of the plane, the plane itself and the regulatory backdrop. Did Boeing cut corners, were the whistleblowers genuine, and what is the remedy? In the run-up to this week’s disaster we saw shares of Boeing rally hard to the best levels of last year after plunging towards $130 which was the lowest since 2022 during April. The company has had an image problem for quite some time, and was apparently getting over it when its Dreamliner went down.
While the incident may not be a company destroyer, it looks serious enough to mean that things will never be the same again. A lot of penance and presumably a lot of expense and hard work will have to go into rehabilitating the company. At the same time it is likely to be the case that extra efforts are going to be made in terms of eliminating those last elements that allow for planes to go down, whether they be human or technology related. Given that we are very much in the age of AI, perhaps technology will give us one more aid in ensuring that such disasters as we have seen this week become even more rare.
Israel / Iran
Before this week’s Israel/Iran conflict began, it did appear that the former had its hands full in terms of attempting to control its conflict in Gaza. However, under the guise of setting its sight on undermining Iran’s nuclear program as well as stifling its alleged help of terrorist organisations in the Middle East, Israel has delivered a series of airstrikes.
The key here is how much the situation will escalate? How much Iran feels that action already taken is enough to allow it to save face, and then down the line whether its nuclear capabilities have indeed been set back. What is interesting of course in this day and age is the way that warfare is dominated by the air, rather than by rolling in tanks. Indeed, if this were not the case then Russia/Ukraine could have been a walkover in favour of the larger nation in just a matter of days.
Perhaps it could also be said that the fact that warfare is now so remote controlled it does mean that conflicts can begin and ideally and rather more quickly than they used to. The other issue, which is certainly coming to light is the way that when 21st century warfare it is the combatant with the best technology, rather than merely troop numbers, that is most likely to win. Given the way that non-western countries are more likely to get weaponry that they have bought rather than have made themselves, the advantage is always going to be with the more developed or better equipped country. This does not guarantee for instance that Israel’s army will ensure it will prevail against a larger foe, just as Ukraine even with all the weaponry in the world would have a struggle against prevailing against Russia.
In addition to the airborne weaponry these days, it is also the case that warfare is very much a public relations battle too. This means that for instance the latest news that 14 Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed in Israel attacks can be something that dilutes the effects of news that it has killed scores of civilians. Taking out the enemy leadership does assuage some of the blame of being in conflict. However, it is a fine line, and in the era of social media the tide can turn for or against one side or another, as quickly in the virtual digital arena as in the real theatre of war.
