Tearing Down the Maharaja – Air India 182

Air India Kanishka landing in Heathrow

It was a flight full of hopes and dreams, a flight full of life. 329 souls with aspirations and dreams, all soaked into the icy deep blue sea in a matter of seconds and all what’s left of them are memories and legacies the world is yet to take notice. Air India 182 is a message of hope, remembrance and perseverance, which will silently stream into our hearts for the many more decades to come.

I was a little 2 year old when this incident took place, but over the years of my life, I’ve heard a number of times when my dad and mom used to talk about the Air India Kanishka’s tragic bombing and how so many innocent people lost their lives in a tragic incident which was of no fault of theirs. And since my mom herself was an Air India employee it made a deep impact on us knowing that something so tragic has happened within. I always wanted to be a pilot and Air India was my source of inspiration over many years, looking at the Boeing 747’s and their Airbus 310’s and flying exclusively on discounted tickets, it used to be my foremost glory to be taken to the cockpit for a quick glance on what’s happening out there between the pilot and those million switches.

Air India Memorial at Stanley Park, Vancouver

Little did all those 329 souls know that small group has been secretively thinking to blow up planes from the sky for intensions of their own; little did they know.

It was just a bright sunny morning when Air India flight 182 flying the Montréal – Heathrow – Delhi route took off from Canada heading towards UK’s coast. People will happy families, came in to drop off their loved ones with sunk hearts bidding farewell and hoping that they would be reaching their homes safe and sound.  While deep under the cargo hold lay a silent brown suitcase filled with a timing device ready to blow up hours from then.  With 82 little children on board and with a crew of 22 assisting them, flight 182 took off from Montréal’s Mirabel airport on its way to London Heathrow.

At 07:14 GMT on 23^rd June 1985, while flying gracefully at 31,000ft, Air India flight 182 vanished from the radar 120miles off the Irish coast and only at around 09:30GMT ships from the local area discovered the wreckage and the world came to know that Air India flight 182 had indeed been blown midair out of the sky by a bomb and that no one from the 329 survived.  Later 131 bodies were recovered by the rescue teams and sent it to Cork Hospital, Ireland for identification by family members; the other 197 were lost at sea.

Plaque at Bantry, Ireland

Its been 29 years now and I cannot expatiate the account of how much this incident pains me at times knowing that a single man’s faith in wrong notions have caused the death and destruction of 329 families spanning across 3 continents and 7000 miles. In the happenings that followed after the tragedy, families of the victims constructed a memorial in Bantry at Cork Country, Ireland, where the people from the city of Bantry opened their hearts for the bereaved and gave them comfort by opening their homes, feeding them, consoling them and for sharing their tragic loss. "Had that terrible disaster not happened, we would never have known a nation of the kindest people in the world — the most compassionate," said Lada Pada, who lost her husband and two daughters to the tragedy. "Strangers opened up their homes to us and their sense of identification with our grief was unimaginable. They kept saying, ‘we are a seafaring nation and we have grown up all our lives knowing what disaster is." And for this deed of humane love and compassion, the Canadian Government erected a commemorative plaque for the people of Bantry, Ireland reading the lines “In their time of greatest need, you opened your hearts and your homes. For caring for them, when they were far away from home, Canada is eternally grateful” and to this day every year on the 23^rd of June, all the families of the victims who perished in the tragedy make their way to Bantry, from all over the world, to join hands in remembrance of the loved and lost.

The Air India Kanishka tragedy has changed my life in many ways and from the day forward I’ve learnt to live and give thanks of what rewarded to me in life. The people around us, the social bonds we garner and the immense love we inherit from our loved one. I guess this is that bond which keeps us going for the many years to come, that love which makes us go across boundaries and across miles of uncharted territories. I’ve come to understand that deep within tragedies lies an alliance of long lost love which people seek during their loss and in time that loss slowly transforms itself into a strong connection between home, cities and nations. And with this incident, the many families who’ve lost loved ones, have made strong connections with the many families in Bantry over time and now live as one big family and to look at how these relationships have been forged is just awe-inspiring.

Lata lost her entire family in the tragedy

Flight 182 will always be close to my heart, not only because its left a lasting legacy in my life, but it has transformed itself from an incident to a system of change, which resulted in the rectification of worldwide security processes and personally churned out a revolution for change in reforms both politically and personally. Many people who were directly affected in the tragedy went on to become great personalities of their own, transforming the communities they live in and every day strive for its refinement.

Amidst every sorrow lies hope, hope that will drive us towards free will to achieve something better, hope that makes us dare into the abysmal abyss.  It is with these hopes that human life revives itself after every incident and picks itself up again to cover those sorrows and leave behind a better path, worth for glory.  Every now and then, when I fly, the laughter of children and pleasant farewell of loved ones come to my mind. I think of what legacy I leave behind, the memories and the little pleasures of life. I can only be thankful to God.

It was a flight full of hopes and dreams, a flight full of life. 329 souls with aspirations and dreams, all soaked into the icy deep blue sea in a matter of seconds and all what’s left of them are memories and legacies the world is yet to take notice. Air India 182 is a message of hope, remembrance and perseverance, which will silently stream into our hearts for the many more decades to come.

Dedicated to all the 329 souls and their families who have lost their loved ones to the Air India-182 bombing of 1985. May their souls rest in peace and may the Almighty lead the rest of their lives with harmony and peace.