BENGALURU: As the country is still recovering from the horrifying Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner crash that killed 260 people on June 12, it has emerged that the deadly fireball that engulfed the aircraft, triggered by 1.2 lakh litres of aviation fuel, could have been entirely preventable.
Ajit Tharoor, CEO of Atom Alloys -- which has operations in India, the USA, Japan and the Middle East, said, “If the explosion had been prevented, many passengers could have survived, perhaps with broken bones and injuries, but alive.”
Tharoor’s company has developed a technology — the ATOM Explosion Prevention System — that, he claims, could have stopped the aircraft from becoming a firebomb. He said the system is built around a patented reticulated alloy mesh, designed to absorb intense heat that chokes flames at the source, stopping vapour explosions.
Veteran commercial pilot Capt Arvind Sharma said, “This technology needs to be adopted in various public transport scenarios where a crash is compounded by fuel explosion.”
Air Marshal (Retd) BK Pandey, who won a gallantry medal for safely landing an Indian Air Force aircraft that had lost power and one of India’s foremost aviation experts, said, “All civilian aircraft must study this technology to see if it is feasible.”
AI crash: The tech tested, says Atom Alloys CEO
The ATOM system is passive, requiring no switches, sensors or external power. Once embedded into an aircraft’s fuel tank, it offers triple-layered protection: Thermal Conductance – pulls heat away before it can ignite fuel; Flame Quenching – breaks down flame fronts before they spread; and Structured Packing – forms a complex barrier to block volatile vapours from combusting.
Asked if it was certified, tested and proven, Tharoor said the system meets NFPA 69 global safety standards and has been vetted by multiple international agencies. “This is not theoretical, it’s real. It’s ready. This technology has been developed after years of research at labs at IISc, India and SouthWest Research Institute, Texas,’’ he said.
It may be recalled that the AI Dreamliner victims’ bodies were charred beyond recognition and authorities had to use DNA testing to identify the remains of the victim’s bodies and the last of the victim’s remains were handed over to their relatives on Sunday.