AIRWORTHINESS IN AVIATION: LESSONS FOR LEGAL AND ORGANISATIONAL ISSUES

This article critically examines the tragic crash of Air India flight AI-171 (June 2025) to highlight the centrality of airworthiness as a non-negotiable principle in aviation safety. Analysing the preliminary investigation’s limitations, organisational culture, and regulatory oversight lapses, it underscores how operational punctuality often eclipses technical integrity, with grave consequences. Drawing on historical defects in Boeing fleets, documented maintenance irregularities, and systemic organisational conflicts, the study advocates a recalibration of priorities towards uncompromising maintenance ethics, regulatory independence, and transparent investigations. Importantly, the article extends the discourse to space law, proposing “space-worthiness” as a parallel doctrinal imperative under the Outer Space Treaty (1967). It argues that the Treaty’s mandate for “continuing supervision” entails rigorous technical oversight from pre-launch through de-orbit, binding both states and private actors. By bridging aviation and space operations, the piece calls for a safety culture grounded in technical perfection, institutional integrity, and the avoidance of corner-cutting practices.