India, July 11 -- To say India's response to the air crash that the country witnessed in horror and disbelief on June 12, has been far from adequate no matter which angle one looks at it is a gross understatement. But this matter will have to wait. Over the past month several aviation industry and Air India officials have reached out to this writer to express their concern and air their fears. The most alarming (and hopefully, alarmist) one is that there could be more accidents. Alarmist as this fear may be, Air India and the aviation regulator would do well to take it seriously since the people involved are privy to the system and its fault lines. There has been a mixed response to news that Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekharan has decided to get more involved with the management of Air India. Still, there's no denying the fact that the chairman of Tata Sons might find his task harder than managing some of his other companies. While onlookers have no doubt that he can fix what's broken, it is by no means going to be easy as this entity needs a total cultural makeover. There is a long and hard road ahead to be traversed, no matter who the navigator. Let me elaborate with some background. In their original avatars, while Air India and Indian Airlines were both owned by the government, they had very distinct cultures and identities even though both suffered the malaise of many State-owned firms . Of the two, Air India had a far more centralised system of operating with each department under one departmental head, who were all powerful and more often than not ran it as a personal fiefdom. Indian Airlines had a more decentralised system: a divisional structure with regional heads responsible for their regions and with far more functional autonomy. While petty rivalries at the top often guided the agenda at both, most of the regional heads in Indian Airlines worked in the larger interests of the airline. This showed in the generally healthier economic performance of Indian Airlines despite it facing more competition (Jet Airways and others) whereas Air India faced practically none (not too many bilaterals had been granted and the access of foreign airlines to Indian traffic was limited). But what was disorienting for the two carriers was the constant change in leadership, which primarily comprised senior bureaucrats pulled in from diverse fields and backgrounds. These individuals had different working and leading styles and their own idiosyncrasies. As one joke that circulated at the time of the merger went: One XX wants a mega airline and the other XX couldn't care less as long as his elevation to additional secretary proceeds without any hiccups (the XXs stand for the common initials of two top managers at the time of the merger and post it). The larger point was that with two very distinct cultures and systems of functioning, the merged entity that emerged suffered from a deep identity crisis and was in some senses doomed from the word go. That is what Tata Sons inherited at the time of the acquisition. Then there was the well-run Vistara, Tata's own airline, but an altogether different creature with its own ethos, values, culture and personality. It is this cocktail of split personalities that Chandrasekharan has the unenviable task of reconciling and fixing. In addition, he also has a top management team that may not be equipped to handle this. The results of this have already shown up in incessant troubles, operational glitches and safety concerns the airline has faced for the last three years, even as it managed to avoid a catastrophic accident. One cannot therefore help but sympathise with the chairman who now has the task of developing a brand-new corporate culture in a multipolar entity while dealing with the fallout of the crash. It's probably a lot more than what he or the Tata group bargained for and is likely to take Herculean effort, commitment and time....