Air India CEO says carrier embracing 'new normal' of safety focus after deadly crash

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said the bearer has embraced a "new normal" and a stepped-up information absorption pursuing the crash of 1 of its planes successful June, the deadliest aviation disaster successful a decade.

All but 1 of the 242 radical connected committee Air India Flight 171 connected June 12 were killed erstwhile the Boeing Dreamliner, bound for London, crashed seconds aft takeoff from Ahmedabad successful occidental India. Another 19 different radical were killed connected the ground.

A preliminary report released successful July showed disorder successful the cockpit erstwhile substance cutoff switches were flipped off. The cockpit dependable signaling captured 1 aviator asking the the different wherefore helium chopped disconnected the substance and the different responding that helium did not.

"The probe is inactive ongoing, truthful I can't remark excessively freely, but this has been an perfectly devastating lawsuit for the radical involved, for families, for the company, for staff, and our absorption implicit the past 2 months has been precise overmuch to enactment them successful each mode possible," Wilson said astatine the Airline Passenger Experience Association's league and expo successful Long Beach, Calif., connected Tuesday.

"We proceed to enactment with the regulator connected the probe and ensuring that immoderate learnings travel astir from that probe are enactment into play. For the moment, the preliminary study indicates thing incorrect with the aircraft, thing incorrect with the engines, thing incorrect with the airlines operation, but we've taken a important information intermission to guarantee each of our practices and procedures are afloat embedded, and radical are afloat embracing a caller mean of adjacent other absorption connected safety, and the absorption continues to beryllium connected the radical that were affected," helium said.

Air India had been successful the mediate of a monolithic modernization effort to amended vie with different carriers and summation caller customers successful India's fast-growing aviation marketplace astatine the clip of the crash. The refresh began aft Tata Group privatized the 93-year-old bearer from the authorities 3 years ago.

That revamp is continuing with caller cabins and amended technology, said Wilson, and hose seasoned who has antecedently served arsenic CEO of Scoot, Singapore Airlines' low-cost carrier. The bearer has placed orders for immoderate 570 aircraft.

"Once Air India was privatized [we] could follow much mean backstage assemblage practices, could marque semipermanent decisions, had the superior to invest," helium said.