A ‘Departure’ from truth: When Canadian fiction mirrors Ahmedabad crash reality

When art mirrors reality with eerie precision, the boundary between fiction and fact begins to blur. Such is the case with the first season of the Canadian-British television series Departure, a taut aviation thriller, and the ongoing probe into the Ahmedabad Air India Boeing crash by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB).

While one is a scripted drama and the other a tragic real-life event, the startling similarities in narrative arcs, investigative trajectories, and thematic elements raise deeper questions about systemic failures, human error, and the fine margins in air safety.

The working theory

The most disturbing similarity between reel and real here is not what happened in the sky. It’s the theory that takes shape after the flames, after the wreckage, after the data. In both the television thriller and the ongoing investigation, the most haunting suggestion — the one many refuse to buy — is that a pilot may have deliberately brought down the aircraft, killing everyone on board.

That’s where the resemblance begins. Not with how the crash looked or where it happened. But in the shape of the investigation circling around pilot suicide and mass murder as the suggested working theory.

Also read: AI finds no issues with fuel control switch locking in B787 planes: Report

The dominant narrative

When I first watched Departure during the second wave of COVID, I saw it as a fictional exploration of a worst-case scenario. In the show, a transatlantic jet vanishes mid-air, and the investigators, led by Kendra Malley (played by the acclaimed British actor of Indian origin, Archie Panjabi), chase every possible theory — technical failure, terrorism, sabotage, and corporate conspiracy. But from early on, a powerful faction within the investigating authorities begins pushing the theory of pilot suicide, shaping the direction of the probe.

It becomes the dominant narrative that investigators are expected to confirm — that the captain, leading a double life and emotionally unravelling, may have deliberately taken the aircraft down. What follows is not just an investigation into a crash, but a battle over what version of the truth will be allowed to stand.

I never thought I’d see that particular arc reflected so uncomfortably in real life.

When real mirrors reel

The AAIB’s preliminary findings into the Air India Dreamliner crash on June 12, which claimed 261 lives, reveal a chilling sequence of events. Just seconds after takeoff, both fuel control switches — which regulate the flow of fuel to the engines — were physically turned to the CUTOFF position, one after the other. As a result, both engines lost power. The aircraft began to descend in a wink, and a brief “Mayday” call was transmitted before it crashed.

Cockpit voice recordings captured one pilot asking, “Why did you cutoff?” and the other replying, “I didn’t.” Then, silence.

No system failure, engine defect, or external threat has been identified yet. A previous FAA advisory had noted potential disengagement of fuel switch locks, but it remained non-binding. The aircraft’s maintenance records showed no red flags.

Also read: AI replaced Throttle Control Module in crashed plane twice on Boeing order

A Departure from the truth

The AAIB report does not accuse. But it unmistakably gestures in one direction. Stories start to flow, that the captain had recently suffered a significant personal loss, and that this emotional strain was confirmed by witnesses. It stops there. But for anyone who has watched a pilot-suicide investigation unfold in fiction or in fact, the signs are familiar.

This is the moment where Departure came flooding back to me — not because I thought the show was playing out in real life, but because I recognised the tone of the investigation.

In Departure, the pilot’s private life, marked by his concealed sexuality and the emotional strain of maintaining two separate families, becomes the lens through which the crash is interpreted. From the outset, investigators are steered towards that conclusion, with evidence selectively assembled to support a theory that had, in many ways, been framed even before the investigation had truly begun.

Outrage from pilots

In the AI 171 case, we now find ourselves in a similarly fraught moment. The evidence is steadily accumulating and appears to converge on a single unsettling possibility. Yet, the investigating agency insists that this is not a conclusion, but merely the beginning of the inquiry.

The pilot community has expressed outrage over the release of cockpit dialogue, questioning the need to disclose such sensitive details without a definitive finding. Critics ask if the AAIB isn’t ready to state its conclusion, why imply one? Meanwhile, segments of the foreign press have begun to say aloud what the report itself only gestures towards.

Also read: Fuel cut in 1 sec? AI-171’s final minutes flag mechanical failure, not pilot error

A miraculous survival

Visually, the two stories could not be more different. Departure presents grief-stricken families, closed door inquiries, reconstructed data trails, and flight simulations played out on investigation centre screens. The crash itself remains unseen, portrayed only through imagined sequences of midair chaos aboard Flight 716. Even the lone survivor’s — Madelyn Strong, a young British doctor — account is filtered through layers, presented not as lived moments but as shadowy, partial, and sometimes speculative memory.

In contrast, AI 171 left nothing to the imagination, with crushed buildings, scorched debris, emergency crews battling flames, and even an amateur video capturing the aircraft’s ascent and fatal descent in real time. And then there is Viswashkumar Ramesh, the real-world counterpart to Departure’s fictional Madelyn Strong. Unlike Madelyn, he plays no part in the investigation so far.

But his survival, captured in that surreal image of him walking out of flames and debris, seemingly unscathed despite the scale of the catastrophe, has become the most haunting visual of the entire tragedy. It felt almost delusional to witness, given the gravity of the crash, as if reality had briefly slipped into the language of fiction.

Institutional dynamics

The institutional dynamics are familiar too. In Departure, Kendra Malley faces pressure from government and airline executives to close the case quickly, to rule out the most damaging possibility. In the real-world probe, observers believe the AAIB is caught in a similar crossfire between transparency and diplomacy.

There are whispers about reputational damage, airline liability, and international coordination, especially with the US NTSB, UK AAIB, and others now involved. The investigation is not just technical, but diplomatic as well. And that, too, makes it feel eerily familiar. When viewed through the lens of Departure, the eagerness with which some sections of the US media have advanced the pilot suicide-mass murder theory in the AI 171 case also appears notably curious.

Also read: Air India plane crash report: How fuel switches work in aircraft

Architecture of failure

It would be foolish to say Departure predicted AI 171 crash. But it would be more foolish to ignore the fact that fiction often rehearses truths we aren’t ready to face. When a scripted drama walks its audience through an institutional reluctance to accept anything beyond human cause and then real life offers an investigation with the same posture, the same language, the same unspoken suspicion, we must pause.

When fiction mirrors reality, it rarely does so frame by frame. But it often reflects the architecture of failure, the way institutions look away. Departure offered one version of that. AI 171 may be offering another.