For Air India, the crash of Flight AI171, a Dreamliner, in June 2025 was more than a tragedy—it was a moment of reckoning. The disaster, India’s deadliest aviation accident in decades, shattered lives, shook public confidence and forced the Tata-owned carrier to look inward.
One year later, the airline is attempting to turn that defining crisis into a catalyst for change. It has tightened maintenance oversight, strengthened safety processes and brought in experienced aviation executives to improve engineering discipline, according to three people familiar with the airline’s operations, including an Air executive, a regulator and a third-party service provider.
Yet despite heightened vigilance and closer scrutiny from regulators, industry experts and customers, significant operational gaps remain, the people cited above said on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.
“Since the crash, maintenance has been under sharper focus, with heightened oversight and stricter monitoring by Singapore Airlines to ensure the highest safety standards,” said one of the three people cited above, an industry executive whose company provides services to Air India.
After the crash, aircraft maintenance expert Jeremy Yew, who had been with Singapore Airlines, moved to Air India as senior vice-president, engineering, in November 2025. His responsibilities were expanded in April this year when he was appointed senior vice-president, engineering and maintenance, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Captain Basil Kwauk, Air India’s chief operations officer, also joined from Singapore Airlines. He had joined the airline four months before the crash.
These appointments are part of a broader effort to bring global best practices into the airline, an Air India executive said.
“Since Singapore Airlines (SIA) became a significant minority shareholder in Air India, we have been working closely with our partner Tata Sons to support Air India’s transformation programme,” a SIA spokesperson said, responding to Mint’s queries via email.
SIA holds 25.1% stake in Air India.
“They are bringing in best practices and trying to instil engineering discipline in the company. But employees still have a long way to go,” the executive said.
Support for crash victims’ families
Immediately after the crash, Air India grounded all its Boeing 787 Dreamliners for precautionary inspections, the executive said. The checks came at the cost of operating fewer international services. The airline also temporarily suspended some widebody and narrowbody flights.
However, despite these visible precautionary measures, maintenance discipline remains a concern, the executive added.
The AI-171 crash also shook the Tata Group far beyond Air India, prompting a coordinated response across its companies last year. Led by chairman N. Chandrasekaran, Tata executives mobilized support for victims’ families, children’s education and affected small businesses, as Mint reported earlier.
Air India did not respond to Mint’s queries till the time of publication.
The absence of consistent operational discipline became evident through two major lapses that surfaced in the months after the crash.
Last year, aviation safety regulator directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA), said it was investigating Air India after the airline operated an aircraft eight times without a valid airworthiness review certificate—an annual document that certifies compliance with safety standards.
Soon after, in March 2026, an Air India flight from Delhi, operated by a Boeing 777-200LR, returned to Delhi after more than 7 hours in the air when it was discovered that the aircraft assigned to the service was not approved to operate at the destination airport in Canada.
“Incidents such as flying without an airworthiness permit or recurring technical defects show there was a need for stricter controls that may have been missing earlier. There is still room for improvement,” the airline executive cited above said.
A former DGCA official involved in the matter said reports on maintenance and defect reporting increased after the crash, prompting closer regulatory oversight.
“There was a constant review of Air India’s operations and safety measures for at least two to three months after the accident,” the former official said. “Multiple instances of lapses were identified.”
Recurring defects
More than seven out of every ten aircraft reviewed in the Air India Group fleet showed recurring technical defects, according to data tabled in the Lok Sabha in February 2026 by minister of state for civil aviation Murlidhar Mohol.
Since January 2025, inspections have found recurring issues in 137 of Air India’s 166 aircraft and 54 of Air India Express’s 101 aircraft.
Repetitive or recurring defects were identified in 148 of 405 IndiGo planes since January 2025.
“We have, out of an abundance of caution, carried out checks across our fleet. Hence, numbers are higher,” an Air India spokesperson told Mint earlier when asked about the higher repeat defects.
Such recurring issues have weighed on customer confidence.
According to the airline executive cited above, Air India lost a meaningful portion of its corporate travel business following the crash. Corporate travellers are among the airline’s most lucrative customers.
To offset some of that impact, the carrier began aggressively promoting its premium economy offering from December last year, the executive added.
Intense social media coverage of the crash amplified fears of flying, hurting leisure travel and unsettling even frequent flyers. K. Dinesh, who runs Bengaluru-based flight anxiety treatment centre Cockpit Vista, said inquiries related to flight anxiety surged manifold after the accident, Mint reported last year.
To be sure, the June crash prompted airlines across India—not just Air India—to tighten maintenance and safety oversight, even as the country awaits the final accident investigation report.
“An immediate and normal response to the crash was a tightening of aircraft maintenance and safety oversight across airlines,” said Ashish Chhawchharia, partner and aviation industry leader, Grant Thornton Bharat.
“At present, the root cause of the accident remains unknown, and any long-term operational or regulatory changes will depend on the findings of the inquiry,” he said.
Safety as priority
For Air India, however, the scrutiny has been especially intense.
As a safety-conscious airline, the Tata Group company is expected to place even greater emphasis on aircraft maintenance, compliance with procedures and addressing operational gaps, Chhawchharia said.
With CEO Campbell Wilson preparing to step down, responsibility for strengthening operational discipline and safety oversight will increasingly fall on his successor.
Among the most immediate priorities will be improving maintenance practices, tightening adherence to procedures and ensuring operational lapses are identified and corrected before they escalate into larger risks.