The air crash in Mangalore has been the occasion for the media to resurrect dire warnings about the parlous state of aviation safety in India. It is probably right to do so, given the growing crowds in the aviation space and the number of near-misses reported during take-offs and landings. But a quick look at the facts suggests that the criticism may be overdone. Air travel in India has, in fact, become safer, though, as the Mangalore tragedy showed, not safe enough. Consider these numbers. Between 1978 and 1988, there were three air disasters in India in which 354 people died, the worst of which was that of the Dubai-bound Kanishka, which crashed into the Arabian Sea soon after take-off, killing all 213 on board. The 90’s — when air travel in India was liberalised to allow private airlines — was a particularly bad decade in terms of air accidents. There were four of them, killing 565 people. The worst of these was in 1996 when aircraft of Saudi Arabian Airlines and Kazakhstan Airlines collided in mid-air, killing 349 people. The 2000s, in contrast, has seen two accidents, 10 years apart, in which 218 people died.
These numbers do not in any way detract from the depth of those tragedies or the current one. Still, two facts are worth considering. One, the decade of the 2000s, when the number of air accidents dipped significantly, coincided with an explosion in air travel after Captain Gopinath pioneered the concept of low-cost fares and budget airlines. To provide one index of the growth, in 2002-03, India had five scheduled passenger airlines plying domestic routes. Today, there are 12 of them. Airports, too, have grown far busier. Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, the country’s most busy air terminal, currently handles over 700 flights a day; in 2002-03, the number was just 77 flights. The Mumbai airport handles 600 flights per day now compared to only 96 flights per day in 2002-03. Despite this, there have been fewer air accidents.
The second point to note is that, of the nine air crashes between 1978 and 2010, state-owned airlines accounted for eight. So far, despite the growing crowds on the runway and the endless, frightening circling in the air, none of the private airlines have been involved in any major accidents involving fatalities. There need be no link between ownership and safety because a government-owned airline like Singapore Airlines has a much better track record of operational safety than many private airlines. But in the case of Air India, governmental interference has contributed to a loss of elan and efficiency. Air India operates in a curious operational and managerial vacuum in which responsibilities and accountability are diffused. Only further investigation will reveal whether it was a pilot error that caused the Mangalore accident or inadequate runway length. Finally, some spokespersons for Indian pilots have been quick to raise the bogey of expat pilots being responsible for accidents. There is no intrinsic reason for this being the case, if airlines hire well-trained pilots. Given the shortage of manpower, airlines should be free to hire expats. This accident should not become a ruse for misplaced patriotism.