Air India Boeing 787 Crash-Themed Festival Décor Sparks Outrage
A bizarre decoration for a religious festival themed after the Air India Boeing 787 crash that killed 260 people has sparked outrage.
Bizarre Air India crash-themed festival décor
The scandal involves an Air India Boeing 787 crash-themed Durga Puja pandal at a religious festival in Chakpur, in the Hooghly District of West Bengal, India.
Durga Puja is a Hindu festival celebrating the goddess Durga’s victory over evil, and a pandal is a temporary, elaborately decorated structure where devotees gather to worship her during the festival.
The pandal depicts an Air India plane that has crashed into a building and caught fire.
On a ropeway connected to a nearby building, a toy aeroplane is seen slowly gliding down towards the pandal, with a light effect simulating an explosion as soon as it hits the building.
From some speakers, the roaring engines of the plane can even be heard as it glides towards the festival décor.
A video of the Air India crash pandal was widely shared on social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter.
Comments
Although pandals are traditionally celebrated for their elaborate designs and creative themes, the crash-themed decoration was widely criticised by those who saw the footage online.
One netizen wrote, “What a shame to glorify a tragedy”, while another commented, “This generation has zero empathy”.
A Twitter user commented that she found the pandal “absolutely disgusting” and asked, “How much trauma would it cause the families of the victims?”
Air India Boeing 787 crash
The scene depicted in the Durga Puja pandal shows the crash of Air India Flight 171, which went down on 12 June 2025, shortly after departing Ahmedabad Airport in India for London Gatwick Airport in the UK.
Operated by a Boeing 787, the Air India flight crashed 32 seconds after take-off when it failed to gain enough engine thrust after the fuel control switches were moved to the cut-off position shortly after departure.
The Air India Boeing 787 crashed into the dormitory of a medical college, killing a total of 260 people – 241 of the 242 passengers and crew on board, and 19 on the ground.
An investigation into the crash is still ongoing, focusing on whether the fuel control switches were moved to the cut-off position deliberately by one of the pilots, accidentally, or if the plane lost thrust due to another factor.
The cockpit voice recorder of the 12-year-old Boeing 787 revealed that moments before impact, one pilot asked the other why he had “cut off” the fuel to the engine, with the second pilot replying that he “did not”.
Conclusion
A scandal has erupted in India over a religious festival featuring decorations themed on the Air India Boeing 787 crash that killed 260 people last June.
Footage of the plane crash-themed pandal – a temporary, elaborately decorated structure where Hindu devotees gather during the Durga Puja festival – sparked outrage across India, with many people condemning it as insensitive to the families and relatives of the victims.
The pandal depicts an Air India plane that has crashed into a building, while a smaller plane glides along a ropeway into the same structure, with flashing lights simulating an explosion as the toy plane strikes the building.
