Dreamliner nightmare

Illustration/Uday Mohite

We were Ahmedabad headed, Bugs Bhargava Krishna, myself, and the rest of our team who handle the Amul account - the airport seemed a bit deserted that Thursday afternoon. We were early, we settled into the lounge area of T1, waiting to board. The 3.15 pm Ahmedabad flight was ready, the announcement said, the TV screens surrounding us all over the lounge, thankfully on mute, had the usual excited, exuberant anchors, telling us about the world at large. And suddenly as we arose, to join the queue, the myriad screens around the airport, told us a chilling story, images of a plane, an Air India Boeing exploding close to Ahmedabad airport, in Meghani Nagar. To see that disaster on loop, a plane suddenly human, unable to climb, desperate but beginning to descend, lost behind some roofs and then a gigantic explosion - our first instinct, we were definitely not going to make it to Ahmedabad that afternoon.

The stories came filtering through, of the faults with the aircraft, the fissures that had developed, the flaps that wouldn't open - and then to the families and the lives lost. Somehow with air disasters, my interest always goes to the cabin crew. And the pilots, always the first to detect the danger.

Pilots, I've always admired, that they carry the lives of so many passengers in their hands - safe take-offs and smooth landings, and when there are disasters, all eyes turn to them, the men and women commandeering the plane. In this case Sumeet Sabharwal, the first officer, the Noah of this aircraft, mid 50s, sacrificed marriage and family to take care of his ailing father, was set to retire for the same reason, at that moment, 300 feet above the ground, in those 32 seconds, unable to lift higher, that cry out of "mayday", in that instant, when climbing had turned to descent, that realisation that the end was near, for himself, for his co-pilot, his cabin crew and the 242 passengers in his care, desperation even at that height, to land in a less populated area, the tragic irony that he had to land on a medical hostel.

The victims, each one with a backstory, mostly of hope and success and new beginnings - leaving behind old parents, orphans, one-year-olds. And the cabin crew, our national airline for all its problems, its staff, always believes in service with a smile.

The Boeing Dreamliner 171. Carrying dreams of 200 passengers, from Gujarat to Gatwick, mothers flying to reunite with daughters, families on a one way ticket, a
nine hour flight to their promised land. Expectations, excitement, ending in a few seconds.

The Dreamliner, 200 dreams reduced to rubble. Life is fleeting. The Maharaja weeps. Dreams have flatlined.

Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com