Following the Air India plane crash tragedy on Thursday, June 12, which comes in a line of other disastrous plane crash incidents in 2025, a former pilot has explained all the reasons why these could be happening.
The Air India crash was on Thursday
A Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed in a residential area in Ahmedabad seconds after takeoff as the Air India flight was bound for London Gatwick.
RELATED STORIES
The crash killed 241 of the 242 people who were on board, with more fatalities on the ground.
This isn’t the first crash we see this year
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first aviation tragedy we’ve witnessed this year. If you’ve been following the news, you’ll remember the American Airlines passenger plane that collided with a Black Hawk helicopter in January, killing 67 people.
There was also the Delta Airlines plane, which crashed in Toronto and landed on its back, though no fatalities came from this incident.
It’s still unclear why the Air India plane went down
The cause of the Air India plane crash is still unclear, though experts have their theories.
One aviation analyst, Geoffrey Thomas, suggested to the BBC that the cause could be that the aircraft flaps – which help increase or decrease the size of its wings – weren’t in the right position after takeoff.
Experts who spoke to The New York Times also suggested factors like high temperatures and fuel contamination as investigators are still looking into it.
Why do these incidents keep happening?
One question that comes to mind is why have this many aviation tragedies taken place in 2025 so far?
Shawn Pruchnicki, currently an Assistant Professor at Ohio State University in the College of Engineering, worked as a Delta connection pilot for a decade, and has weighed in on the issues that may have become the cause of these disasters.
He talked about losing ‘the safety buffer’
Speaking to MailOnline, the crash investigator and accident causation expert spoke about ‘the safety buffer’ that has ‘eroded in recent years’ within the aviation industry, giving a few possible reasons why these incidents may be happening.
Safety standards are declining
According to Pruchnicki, there’s been a drop in standards for airplane manufacturers who may now allow planes with defects to pass checks.
The former pilot claimed that this has “led to the deaths of 346 people in two crashes in less than six months in October 2018 and March 2019.” He also added that the alarm for this has been raised ‘for years’.
Distances between planes are getting smaller
Pruchnicki also said he was ‘sorry to say’ that the collision between the American Airlines plane and the army helicopter in Washington DC was not surprising news to him, as for a long time he feared something like that would happen.
The ex-pilot added that he once came within a few hundred feet of another plane himself. “If planes come within a couple of miles of each other, we start to worry,” he said. “Any distance noted in feet counts as within a hair’s breadth of disaster!”
There’s a shortage in air traffic controllers
Pruchnicki added that the shortage of air traffic controllers could be another possible reason for these incidents as well. He admitted he ‘feels for these controllers’ who are ‘over-worked and over-stressed’ while in charge of people’s livelihoods.
Although he reiterated that air travel is the safest mode of transportation available, he added that “unfortunately, several dramatic incidents in the last year have rattled public confidence in safety.”
Some pilots are getting promoted without proper experience
The aviation expert also admitted he was worried about both regional and national airlines hiring and promoting pilots who have ‘less experience than ever before’.
“We need more qualified candidates in the pipeline for air traffic controllers,” he explained. “When the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommends changes in the wake of their incident investigations they must be implemented.”
The ex-pilot added that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also requires greater funding if this were to happen in the US.