In a development that has shattered the delicate peace of the aviation world with all the grace of a 747 hitting a mountain, the father of the Air India pilot who recently turned a perfectly good runway into a scrap metal yard has stepped forward to defend his little darling. The elder Mr. Singh, speaking from the comfort of his gilded drawing room in Mumbai, declared his son a 'bloody good pilot' who was merely 'a bit fatigued' when he decided to test the structural integrity of the aircraft against the unforgiving Kerala terrain.
His defence, delivered with a straight face that would make a statue blush, hinges on the ancient parental maxim: 'My boy is a saint, and if he did do it, it was the coffee’s fault.' Meanwhile, the British aviation safety probe, which has been beavering away with all the enthusiasm of a terrier at a rat hole, is demanding answers that go beyond the tried-and-tested 'pilot error, tut tut' script. These plucky chaps from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch have the audacity to ask questions like: 'Why did the autopilot disengage?
' and 'Why did the crew fail to notice they were descending into a hillside while staring at their iPads?' They are, if you can believe it, actually looking for root causes. Not just the usual scapegoat.
The gall of these people. Perhaps they think flying a plane is a science, not an art form best practiced by hereditary bloodlines and cocktail consumption. One shudders to think what they might uncover with all their tedious data analysis and cockpit voice recorders.
I, for one, am sick of experts. What is a black box but a glorified snitch? Let us instead celebrate the father’s unconditional love.
It is, after all, the only thing holding back the tide of accountability. And is that not what we truly need in this godforsaken world? A little less truth, and a whole lot more creative defence counsel.
