India, June 26 -- A phrase in Shakespeare's Henry IV, "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown" sums up the position Tata Sons chairman Natrajan Chandrasekaran and Air India CEO Campbell Wilson find themselves in as the initial shock of the Air India crash dies down. An outpouring of public grief and anger in the absence of clarity on what led to the crash and a clear culprit to vilify has fairly or unfairly been directed at those in the eye of the storm. Public apologies from both have by and large fallen on deaf ears and scrutiny of the actions of the Tata and Air India management have been relentless and unforgiving including comparisons with how a JRD Tata or Ratan Tata would have handled a crisis of this nature. A letter sent by former Indian Airlines captain and an industry veteran Shakti Lumba castigating the absence of the Tata chairman at the funeral of the captain of the flight in question went viral. A public apology issued by Air India CEO Campbell Wilson was alleged to have been plagiarised from a similar one tendered a few months earlier by the CEO of American Airlines in the wake of an air collision. While the above might constitute the trivial or relatively inconsequential, more substantive issues have been raised by sections of the industry including those manning similar posts in rival airlines. It has been impossible for those in the sector to keep themselves at a distance and not place themselves in the shoes of those directly involved or being held accountable for the tragedy. One of the biggest and most glaring questions being asked is whether someone with as many hats to wear and juggle as the Tata chairman should, in addition to all his present responsibilities, also be chairing the airline, a decision Chandra appears to have taken against the counsel of some of his advisors at the time of takeover. While comparisons in hindsight cannot change the course of events, industry experts and IndiGo insiders point to the past chairman of their airline: MD Mallaya, former head of Bank of Baroda, former SEBI chairman M Damodaran, technocrat Venkataramani Sumantran and with the latest chairman Vikram S Mehta, former chairman of Shell in charge, to make the point that all the past chairmen have been those who have ended their past active assignments and in a position to give their sole attention to the airline and its affairs, in sharp contrast to Chandra, who is willy-nilly pulled in many directions. Jet Airways too was chaired by founder Naresh Goyal, who kept his eye and attention almost solely on his business from inception till closure. With an airline of the size and complexity of Air India with the mergers and a mountain of legacy issues, many argue that his chairing the board might not have been and even now may not be the best course of action, one that Singapore Airlines representatives too seem to have accepted as fait accompli. This is a matter that might come up for discussion in the aftermath of this tragedy or at least should, as one former aviation minister pointed out to me. A second question which has been raised before is on the competence and abilities of the airline CEO Campbell Wilson, who was the Tata's fallback option after the first candidate selected from Turkish Airlines failed to get security clearance. With his prior experience as CEO of Scoot, Singapore Airline's low cost subsidiary which started operations in 2012 and has a fleet of 55-odd aircraft now, Campbell, many argued, had neither the requisite experience nor the bandwidth to handle an airline with over 200 aircraft while navigating the Indian aviation landscape, even if he had the best intention. The magnitude and scale of the transformation was and is beyond him, many airline insiders maintain even today. A top management source pointed out that Campbell himself has primarily been in charge of a subsidiary of a "bigger mothership in a cultural environment where authority is easy to enforce". He said that the magnitude, complexity and environment here in India would be a challenge even for someone who had dealt with complex mergers in the past, let alone someone who has never had this kind of experience. "From a structured thinking and environment where your calendar is fixed six months in the future to be air dropped into the chaos of the Indian aviation working environment, the transition itself is not easy", he argued. Another matter that has been raised as a red flag is the "foreign element" that began to infiltrate the airline after Campbell took charge. According to Air India sources, there has been a steady trickle of expats joining the airline across functions including some of the spouses of the expats being given roles as consultants, leading to even more heartburn. In an earlier interview, the CEO had told this writer that his moves so far here have been to recruit Indians for most roles. "The only exception so far was in the area of safety and security where I felt that bringing in international best practice from a major global airline was required," he had said after he brought in Henry Donohoe as head of safety for the carrier in November 2022. In light of current circumstances, critics argue his words ring hollow. Given the substantial investment in foreign expertise, industry observers are now questioning whether the promised transformation in safety standards has materialised, particularly given Donohoe has had a tenure of over two years. In a previous response to queries on the replacement of experienced Indian staff with foreigners, the airline spokesperson had said that foreign nationals working as part of the Air India team form less than 4% of the total senior management team and less than 1% of the total employee base of the organisation" and that these "resources are playing a crucial role in the transformation journey". But if Campbell faces the charges of introducing a foreign element, the Tatas face the more serious charge of having "Tata-ised" (read : bureaucratised) the airline by systematically weeding out specialised experience in the name of getting rid of "legacy" staffers (read: everyone over 50 years) and replacing them with Tata trusted aides, with little or no experience in the aviation field. A letter by a whistleblower that has been doing the rounds on social media names four "key mistakes" in hiring, which include the airline's CCO, CFO, CHRO and the chief customer officer, and raises concerns on mismanagement of Air India airlines. Over the last couple of years, many staffers have also complained about the over digitisation and the vanishing of the human element, saying that the airline is run like one gigantic app. The fact that many top positions are filled by non-aviation experts at their closest rival has been a matter of great debate and intrigue even in IndiGo management circles, who have more than once expressed their amazement at this development. As one of them said in a lighter vein to this writer : "it makes us wonder if we have got it all wrong somehow", as he keenly observed the Air India hires over the last couple of years. This is a concern repeatedly raised by experts and expressed many times by this columnist too in the pages of this newspaper. But perhaps the most alarming - even if it comes from a so-called disgruntled set - is the assertion that this writer heard more than once in the week following the crash in Ahmedabad from former directors and commanders of the airline: that things had gone so awry that underlying issues needed urgent attention, given that aviation incidents typically stem from accumulated operational weaknesses rather than isolated events. Will Campbell Wilson's proud proclamation that the airline now has a young team with an average age of 35 years in fact end up being its biggest Achilles heel? Only time will tell....