India, Jan. 9 -- The year gone by will go down in history as a tragic year for Indian aviation. The question before us is: Do we as a nation brood over the past or look ahead to rectify what's broken? Resilient India would vote for the latter. The June 2025 Air India 171 crash is something that the nation cannot erase from memory, not just because of the lives lost but also because of how devastating the psychological impact was for almost anyone who keenly observed the aftermath of the crash. That the flying public remains wary and prays silently before take-off and during touchdown even today speaks volumes about the collective trauma this disaster inflicted - shaking the confidence of many, both within the airline and outside. Worse, confidence in the system, including in those in charge of keeping the skies safe, has taken a severe beating. As one observer put it, India was struck by two numbing disasters in close succession: The crash and the handling of its aftermath. So, even as we are still to ascertain the factors that led to the tragedy, 2026 presents a valuable opportunity for the Indian civil aviation ecosystem to pause and prepare to take a mammoth leap. If there is one lesson the year gone by has taught us, it is this: India lacks standard operating procedures (SOPs), systems, and expertise (to the point of embarrassment) in a highly technical and specialised field. This, despite the country producing one of the largest batches of engineering graduates annually and being the only country to have achieved a soft-landing on the lunar south pole. It is worth reiterating here that India as a nation needs to do this for its own sake, not to prove a point to others in the global community. Let me highlight a few gaps that became glaring after the June crash. If the post-crash handling of the victims' bodies and their grief-stricken kin left a lot to be desired, one factor that seems to have been overlooked post the accident is that crash sites (and data recovered) have to be treated akin to crime scenes and not contaminated or trampled over by all and sundry, as it appears to have happened after the crash in Ahmedabad. Numerous news reports claimed that the site wasn't cordoned off as required for a significant length of time after the crash. What was even more galling was the mishandling of the retrieval and decoding of the black box and the cockpit voice recorder. This was only matched by the ill-thought-out communication from the authorities after the recovery and decoding, all of which came at a sensitive juncture when the tragedy was still fresh in the memory of the public and the families of the victims. So far, most in the industry or outside of it cannot tell you where these devices were first sent to (the US, some news platforms claimed) or by whom these were decoded. But perhaps what irked us the most in the aftermath of the accident is the total breakdown of communication and lack of transparency in what was eventually communicated to the public. Simply arranging for a top-level press conference post the tragedy - to outline how India would be handling the investigation, addressing concerns of the families of victims including compensation and what would be done to allay the fears of both the crew and passengers till a firm cause of the accident can be arrived at - would have gone a long way in ending the endless media speculation that followed the event. Minor by comparison but equally incomprehensible was a recent report regarding a dispute between India's airport operators and the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India (AERA). It highlighted how a lack of expertise was leading to ludicrous judgments by regulatory and semi-judicial bodies in India. The report said that a recent judgment by Telecommunications Disputes Settlement And Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) - the body that looks into telecom disputes in the country - suggested that user charges at Mumbai airport be increased to what can only be termed "absurd" levels, given current and prevalent air fares. It is a prime example of entrusting a dispute on a complex subject to an authority competent to tackle something radically different! What is most concerning and needs immediate attention is the fact that, though this column and those across several platforms have highlighted the lack of expertise in the directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA), the body that is entrusted with the safety of millions of fliers, the needle seems to have moved very little. A recent paper submitted by the regulator to the civil aviation ministry raises all the issues that leave it hamstrung and unable to address vital aspects of the country's aviation ecosystem. To avoid a repeat of what we witnessed in 2025, injecting DGCA with expertise at every level is the most pressing need of the hour....