What India’s 10 worst air disasters tell us — A lot has to go wrong at once

On a clear summer afternoon, an

Air India

flight sent out a Mayday call, stopped responding, and went up in flames before crashing into a medical college hostel — all within minutes of taking off from the Ahmedabad airport runway. All but one of the 242 people on board died. And some 50 to 60 students from the medical college were hospitalised.
What went wrong? The answer, as would be the case for such accidents anywhere, can take months to piece together. But looking back at India’s worst air disasters shows how quickly small lapses and misjudgments can add up.