
Security agencies question ground handling staff at Ahmedabad airport
New Delhi [India], June 16 (ANI): Security agencies questioned ground handling staff and seized their phones at Ahmedabad airports as part of the probe into the Air India plane crash incident.
A senior official said that all staff related to ground handling of the aircraft have been questioned, and their statements have been recorded.
'After the incident, the details of the ground handling staff who inspected the aircraft before giving go ahead for take off have been questioned and their phones have been seized for further investigation,' the official added.
The official further added that CCTV recordings of the airport premises have been taken over by the agency for investigation.
'It is a 360-degree investigation to cover all possible angles that could have led this incident.The agencies didn't rule out sabotage angle in the plane crash.
On June 12, Air India Flight AI 171 belonging to Boeing Dreamliner 787-8 fleet crashed within a few seconds after taking off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad.
Last Thursday, the aircraft lost altitude soon after taking off at around 1.30 pm. The pilot had issued a 'mayday' distress call to ATC.
On Monday, a team of Boeing reached the crashed site for investigation. Authorities successfully retrieved the Cockpit Voice Recorded (CVR) and the second black box. The first black box was discovered on Friday.
An investigation under the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is underway. (ANI)
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Hindustan Times
20 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
DNA profiling for Air India crash victims may end today, kin await results
The painstaking process of DNA profiling of all the victims of the Air India Dreamliner crash is expected to finish by Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, a top doctor said on Monday, potentially exacerbating the wait of scores of relatives who continue to camp in Ahmedabad. Also Read: DNA verification completed for 119 victims in Air India plane crash A group of 54 experts across Forensic Science Laboratories in Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, and Rajkot are working round-the-clock to carry out profiling and matching tests. But there is still no final word on the official toll on what is India's worst single-aircraft tragedy that killed all but one of the 242 on board, and at least 30in the hostel building the AI-171 jet rammed into, or in the neighbourhood. Dr Rakesh Joshi, superintendent of Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, said that 119 DNA samples have matched with the victims of the crash. Using these, 76 bodies have been handed over to families. Another eight bodies, which didn't require DNA sampling, were returned on Friday. Also Read: Did double engine failure cause the Air India plane crash? PIB fact-checks At least 14 more bodies will be returned by Tuesday morning. 'The DNA profiling all the victims will be completed by either Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning,' Joshi said. 'We are trying our best to finish this process as soon as possible.' One of the people identified by DNA profiling was former chief minister Vijay Rupani, whose final rites were conducted in Rajkot on Monday. Also Read: New video shows lone survivor walking away as crashed plane turns into fireball The Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick crashed 33 seconds after taking off on Thursday afternoon and rammed into the medical college hostel, marking the worst air tragedy in the country in three decades. Thick plumes of black smoke billowed from the debris of AI-171 at the crash site roughly 3km from the Ahmedabad airport premises. The aircraft – which carried almost a full load of 125,000 litres of fuel – entered a slow descent shortly after taking off at 1.38pm, with its landing gear still extended before exploding into a huge fireball upon impact. The twin-engine plane had reached an altitude of 625 feet (190.5 meters) at a speed of 174 knots, according to data from Flightradar24. Since Thursday, scores of relatives have trooped into Ahmedabad, their wait turning from hours into days as authorities struggled to identify charred bodies and recover samples. At Dr Pratik Joshi's home in Ahmedabad, for example, 50-60 relatives from Rajasthan's Banswara are anxiously awaiting DNA confirmation to claim the remains of Pratik, 41, his wife Dr. Komi Vyas, and their children — Miraya, 8, and twins Nakul and Pradyut, 5. 'We are caught in a nightmare, unable to sleep or stay awake,' said Anil Vyas, Komi's father. 'They've confirmed Pratik' identity, but we're still waiting for the others. Nothing is in our hands…Hospital authorities have promised answers by tomorrow. The wait gets heavier with time,' he told HT. Dr. Pratik Joshi, a 41-year-old radiologist, was relocating his family from India to London for a new chapter. The family had captured their joy in a selfie on board, moments before the crash. Other families grew more impatient. 'They told us 72 hours. It has been four days now. We haven't got a call from the hospital authorities yet. I don't know when I will get to see the body of my brother and his family members so we can lay them to rest,' said Imtiyaz Ali, whose brother Javed Ali, sister-in-law Mariyam, and their children Aman Ali and Zayn Ali were killed in the crash. `Javed is of Indian origin and Mariyam is of Pakistani origin. 'The doctors explained to me that through DNA matching of my blood sample, they can confirm the DNA sample of my brother Javed. Then through his DNA, they can confirm the DNA samples of his two children,' Imtiyaz said. Finally, the confirmed samples of the two children would be used to identify Mariyam. Dr Joshi urged the grief-stricken kin of the victims to not panic, but acknowledged that complaints were mounting. 'Some are complaining that the results have not come even after 72 hours. I appeal to them not to panic because this is a very important process with legal implications. We will call them as soon as results arrive,' he said. He underlined that delays were on various accounts. 'Two foreign nationals will arrive on Tuesday for DNA testing, …11 families who have lost multiple relatives in crash have received one body but are still awaiting the release of others…18 other families, whose loved ones' DNA has been matched, have yet to inform authorities when they will claim the remains for final rites,' he said. Rohit Patel from Nadiad shared that hospital authorities confirmed a DNA match for his brother Anil Patel's daughter-in-law, Puja Patel, but added that he was still awaiting results for HIS WHO Harshit Patel. 'We're heartbroken and unsure what to do next. We've asked them to release both bodies together so we can perform their final rites,' he said. Doctors cautioned that the nature of the remains – many of the bodies are charred due to the intense heat of the fire that accompanied the crash – is making extraction of viable DNA challenging. A doctor from Ahmedabad's Civil Hospital told HT that often samples of multiple relatives needed to strengthen statistical certainty, especially when the DNA is degraded. 'We may need to test several relatives—parents, siblings, children—and if the body is dismembered, all recovered parts are tested to confirm they belong to the same individual before release,' the doctor said, requesting anonymity. Dr. Saumil P. Merchant, professor and head of forensic medicine at Narendra Modi Medical College, said that under normal conditions, a DNA report takes about three months due to the stepwise nature of profiling: sample cleaning, DNA isolation, quality assessment, amplification, sequencing, and matching. 'In this case, the timeline has been compressed to just 72 hours by adopting a 24x7 operational system involving multiple forensic labs, including the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Gandhinagar—one of India's largest— that can process around 130 samples at once,' Merchant told HT.


Time of India
30 minutes ago
- Time of India
Supreme Court: No shield for a man who didn't report unaccounted money in account for months
Supreme Court (Photo: ANI) NEW DELHI: Delay in informing the police about getting unaccounted money in one's bank account from any unknown source can spell trouble for the account holder as Supreme Court on Monday refused to protect a man from arrest after noting that he took four months' time to approach the police after getting Rs 20 lakh in his account, which were proceeds of crime. Seeking anticipatory bail after being summoned by Delhi police for cyber fraud for receiving the money, a resident of Shivnagar village in Bihar's Nawada sought protection from arrest, alleging his account was misused by his tenant. Account misused by tenant, claims petitioner in money transfer case The petitioner alleged his account was misused by his tenant, who got the details of his account on the pretext of online transfer of the loan amount taken by him and subsequently hacked the account. When advocate Rakesh Singh, appearing for petitioner, contended his client has already appeared in-person before Delhi Police and is cooperating in probe and provided all the information, a bench of Justices Sandeep Mehta and P B Varale asked him only one question about when his client received the money in his account and when he approached the police. As the bench was informed, the petitioner approached police after around four months, as the money got transferred into his account in September last year, and he approached police in January, the bench said the petitioner then could not be granted relief and dismissed his petition. In this case, there were multiple transfers of money to his account from different sources in a single day, which ran to over Rs 5 crore and 13 cases were registered for different transactions, which were done from different parts of the country, including one from Delhi for Rs 20 lakh cyber fraud. The Rs 20 lakh deposited in his account was transferred to three other accounts within hours and Delhi cyber police lodged the case under Section 318(4) of BNS, 2023. The FIR was registered on a complaint given by an authorised representative of a firm, namely Starcon Infra Projects India Pvt Ltd. It is the case of the prosecution that the complainant was defrauded by one person by luring the complainant into transferring a sum of Rs 20 lakh. During the investigation, it was found that the amount was transferred into the bank account of the petitioner in Bihar. The petitioner's advocate tried to convince the court that his client was running a subsidised canteen for the paramilitary with no criminal past and he was not even aware of the cyber crime while pleading for bail, but the bench refused his plea only on the ground of delay in informing the police about the transaction and said that probe was needed to be done against him.


India Gazette
an hour ago
- India Gazette
Journalists killed in Israel's attack on state radio, television building: Iran Embassy in India
Tehran [Iran], June 16 (ANI): The Embassy of Iran in India on Monday shared a photo of smoke billowing from a building and said that its state radio and television building had been attacked, resulting in the deaths and injury of large number of Iranian journalists. Sharing the details in a post on X, the Embassy said that the 'criminal act' violates all international regulations. It said, 'A few minutes ago, in a brutal attack, the criminal #Zionist regime targeted the building of Iran's state radio and television (IRIB), killing and injuring a large number of Iranian journalists. We expect independent media in #India to condemn this criminal act, which clearly violates all international regulations.' Earlier on Monday, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian had said in a post on X, 'We have never been and are not aggressors, but hand in hand, we stand strong against the brutal criminal. As our dear people persevere in this struggle, the government is also trying with all its might to prevent any disruption to people's daily lives.' Seperately on Monday, Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) had said in a post on X that it has eliminated four Iranian intelligence officers. It said, 'The IDF eliminated 4 senior Iranian intelligence officials, including the Head of the IRGC's Intelligence Organization. Yesterday, IAF fighter jets guided by precise IDF intelligence struck a structure in Tehran housing top Iranian intelligence officials. The 4 officials are: Mohammad Kazemi, Head of IRGC Intelligence Organization Mohammad Hassan Mohaqiq, his deputy Mohsen Bakri, Head of Quds Force Intelligence Abu al-Fadl Nikouei, his deputy These officials played a central role in Iran's strategic planning and terrorist operations against Israel, the West, and regional countries. This strike follows the elimination of Iran's Armed Forces' Intelligence Chief last Friday--delivering a major blow to Iran's terror network.' Most recently, the US Department of State elevated its travel advisory for Israel to the highest level. It said in a media note, 'Israel, West Bank, and Gaza Travel Advisory Updated to level 4: Do Not Travel' The note added, 'The Department of State updated its Travel Advisory for Israel, West Bank and Gaza to Level 4 'Do Not Travel' on June 16 to reflect the Authorised Departure of Family Members and some non-emergency US government personnel.' The developments come amid the background of Israel and Iran tensions in West Asia. Israel launched a massive airstrike on Iranian military and nuclear sites, dubbed 'Operation Rising Lion,' in response to which Iran fired ballistic missiles at Israeli cities. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement posted on social media platform X, that Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival,' adding that the mission would continue 'for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.' Iranian News Agency IRNA said that the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), in response to the Israeli aggression, has launched a large-scale drone and missile operation targeting Israeli fighter jet fuel production facilities and energy supply centres. Called 'Operation True Promise 3,' the strikes were conducted in direct retaliation against Israeli aggression. (ANI)