Anganwadi building inaugurated
Chamarajanagar Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer Mona Roth inaugurated a newly constructed Anganwadi building at Doddinduvadi village in the district.
The facility is part of an initiative of the Amyga Foundation, which has been partnering with the Department of Women and Child Development since 2019 to provide free Montessori-based English-medium education to over 600 children across India, including 250 children in Karnataka, a press release said.
The new building will accommodate over 40 children. The collaboration has resulted in the construction of two new Anganwadi buildings and the renovation of 17 others, the release added.
Lakshmi Ramamurthy and M.R. Dharamarajan, trustees of the Amyga Foundation; Komathi, general manager of the foundation; Rangan, deputy CEO of Walvoil and others were present.
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The Hindu
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Ahmedabad plane crash: Couple's long-awaited family reunion in the U.K. ends in tragedy
Ahmedabad-based Pinakin Shah and his wife Rupaben were looking forward to their journey to the United Kingdom, where their 30-year-old son, Rushab, had recently purchased a house in Glasgow and organised a housewarming ceremony. The trip was especially significant for the couple, as it also marked a rare opportunity to reunite with their daughter Janaki and her two daughters. Janaki, who lives in Kuwait, was to join them in the U.K., making it a rare occasion for the entire family to come together. However, those plans came to a tragic halt when the couple boarded the ill-fated London-bound Air India flight that crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad on Thursday afternoon. The accident claimed 265 lives, including 241 passengers. Pinakin Shah, 62, was employed as a manager at a box manufacturing company in Ahmedabad, while 58-year-old Rupaben was a homemaker. Speaking to PTI, Utsav Shah, a relative, said, 'My uncles had gone to meet him [Pinakin] on Thursday morning. They greeted him [for his flight journey to London]. As most of them are old, they just met him but did not drop him at the airport.' The Shah couple were photographed smiling together outside the airport, moments before boarding the flight, he added. 'Rushab had bought a new house [in Glasgow]. The family was excited as his Kuwait-based sister Janaki and her two grandchildren were also going to be in the U.K. Since Rushab and Janaki resided in two different countries, the coming together of the entire family was a rare occurrence,' Mr. Utsav said. Following news of the crash, Janaki arrived in India on Thursday night and provided her DNA samples to assist in the identification process. Rushab arrived early on Friday. 'Rushab is traumatised and inconsolable. He is losing his senses because of the shock,' Mr. Utsav said.
Hindustan Times
an hour ago
- Hindustan Times
Couple killed in Air India crash had lost pilot son in earlier aviation tragedy
A couple who died in the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad on Thursday had already lost their only son in a previous aviation tragedy, UK-based news agency PA Media has reported, citing a London temple leader. Rajrajeshwar Guruji, who leads the Siddhashram Shakti Centre in Harrow, north-west London, said the couple had been returning from a religious celebration in India when the flight went down. Follow LIVE updates here. He told PA Media that their son, who was a pilot, had died in a crash in France several years earlier. The report did not identify the couple or their son. 'This couple had gone to India for a religious celebration – they were coming back and now this has happened,' Rajrajeshwar said. 'After what has happened to their son as well, it's just terrible to think about.' Also Read | Seated on 11A, passenger survives Air India Boeing 787 crash, all others die: Is it the safest seat? He further added that he personally knew 20 people who were killed in the crash and added that all were members of the Hindu community who had worshipped at his temple over the years. He said that most of those onboard he knew were people travelling either to visit elderly relatives in India or to take part in religious events. Others had adult children studying at university in the UK and were returning from extended visits. Also Read | Lunch plates abandoned, plane parts in walls after Air India jet hit doctors' hostel 'This is the most shocking news we have ever experienced in the temple's 25-year history,' he told PA Media. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft (AI171), which carried 230 passengers and 12 crew members, crashed into the complex of a medical college on Thursday afternoon. It had taken off from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad. One person survived the crash, while 241 on board were killed. Of the total passengers onboard, there were 169 Indians, 53 British, one Canadian and seven Portuguese nationals, apart from 12 crew members. Aviation experts told HT that the aircraft's flight profile — descending while maintaining a nose-up attitude — might suggest a sudden and severe power loss. They cautioned, however, that while such a descent profile is consistent with engine failure, the exact cause cannot be confirmed until later after investigation.
India Today
2 hours ago
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Indian Airlines-Vayudoot: A flight to disaster
(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated Nov 15, 1988)It was a disaster waiting to happen. For months Indian Airlines, strapped for aircraft, and Vayudoot, with its over-ambitious expansion, had stretched services to breaking point. The inevitable result: flight schedules had gone haywire and, more serious, air safety norms were flouted. Snags were ignored to keep flights running, aircraft were pushed beyond endurance limits and pilots were under pressure to keep flying. As an aviation expert says: "The airlines were surviving on a wing and a prayer."advertisementFinally on October 19 their luck ran out. In the blackest day in the country's aviation history, first an Indian Airlines Boeing 737 on a routine flight from Bombay to Ahmedabad inexplicably crashed into a nullah, 4 km short of the airport. It killed all but five of the 135 on board. An hour later and 3,000 km away, a Vayudoot Fokker slammed into a hill near Guwahati killing all 34 passengers. The combined toll: 164 dead."It was just too shocking," says Gerry Pais, the normally affable Indian Airlines managing director. "We were already upset over our crash. When we heard of the Vayudoot one, we were stunned." Aviation circles were not the only ones unnerved by the twin disasters. For the over 11 million passengers, who every year catch over 95,000 flights to 96 destinations in the country, the crashes suddenly raised the foreboding question: how safe are our domestic airlines? The fear heightened when in the next few days a series of snags occurred on other While most were minor, they resulted in hyper reactions. For instance, the day after the erases, on IC 458, a Boeing 737 flight from Madras to Delhi carrying 121 passengers, the pilots noticed that the light indicating the under-carriage had been lowered wasn't working. Passengers watched with increasing panic as a sweating co-pilot came into the cabin. He checked below seats, where the manual systems were located, to see if the landing gear had in fact been deployed. The tower was asked to flash lights at the underbelly to confirm that the wheels were down. Only then did the aircraft same day an Indian Airlines Airbus from Madras to Singapore carrying 195 passengers developed a hydraulic leak on take-off. It was a relatively minor snag, since the aircraft has two such standby systems. But when the pilot signalled he was returning, airport officials panicked. An emergency was declared and fire tenders mistaking vapours of the leaking fluid from one of the engines for smoke, rushed to douse it. In the process the engine was unnecessarily the week's end public confidence in air travel had dropped to an all-time low. Delhi-based industrialist Atul Punj, an itinerant air traveller, said: "It is high time that Indian Airlines cleaned up its act. It's obvious that there is a total breakdown in the system." Added economist, Professor R.K. Pachauri, also a frequent traveller: "One had always been afraid the way the airlines had been flogging their aircraft and running their services. When the crashes occurred one almost said I knew it would happen."advertisementTwo concerned citizens even filed suits in court charging the airlines with callousness. And when members of the consultative committee of Parliament attached to the Civil Aviation Ministry met, they launched a blistering attack against the airlines and the department. A member, P. Kolandaivelu, even demanded that Shivraj Patil, minister of state for civil aviation, was apparent that the problems hounding both Indian Airlines and Vayudoot were beginning to come home with ferocious intensity. Aviation officials were finally jolted into reviewing safety measures. Says P.C. Sen, director-general of civil aviation: "We definitely need to take a hard look at the whole system and take all positive corrective measures to see that these tragedies don't occur again."The causes of the two crashes symbolised in a gory manner the problems plaguing the airlines. Barring a 10-minute delay, there was nothing to indicate to the 129 passengers on board IC 113 from Bombay to Ahmedabad that it was a flight to disaster. Seated at the rear of the Boeing 737, Vinod Tripathi, 52, only wondered why it was so foggy outside. At 6.41 a.m. the airhostess announced they were nearing the airport. The 'fasten seat belt' sign blinked minutes later, Captain O.M. Dalaya, the flight commander, radioed the air-traffic controller—"I'm going outbound." What he meant was that he was taking a standard P-shaped turn so that he could bring the plane in line with the runway. He made the turn and then began to the Boeing, Tripathi got a little worried when he felt the aircraft sink rapidly. Then he heard an explosion and saw fire all around. "The aircraft just broke into pieces," he recalls. He found himself upside down. There was smoke everywhere. He felt something warm near his stomach - his seat belt was burning. He hastily tore it off.' T got up and ran, ran, ran, as fast as I could. My skin was on fire, my heels were burning." And then he blacked scene of the crash was straight out of a horror film. Bodies charred beyond recognition were strewn all around, some looking like surreal black clay sculptures. The only part of the aircraft left intact was the tail with the 'IA' logo pointing skywards. The shorn-off landing gear column looked like burnt cannons. The debris itself covered over half a as Are tenders and police rushed to the spot, the second air tragedy was about to occur. Vayudoot Flight PF 704 had taken off in driving rain from Silchar in Assam and was approaching the state capital, Guwahati. At around 8.48 a.m., the air traffic controller cleared it for landing. And then suddenly, there was an ominous silence from PF increasing concern, the controller kept repeating: "PF 704. If you read me, request position, request position." Twenty minutes later, an air force helicopter was dispatched to search for the aircraft and took three hours to spot the twisted and mangled frame atop a two crashes had several striking similarities. Both were coming in to land. Both were doing the standard P-loop manoeuvre, laid down by airport manuals, to line up the aircraft with the runways. There was no mayday' signal from either aircraft to indicate something was wrong. Both were lower than the permissible altitude. While IC 113 slammed into the ground. PF 704 veered some 20 km off-course and rammed into a the probe into the Vayudoot crash was hampered by inaccessible terrain, aviation experts were busy theorising how the Boeing disaster occurred. Shivraj Patil shocked everyone by stating that he did not rule out sabotage. Preliminary investigations at the crash site showed no remains of an explosive material that could have caused a the flight data and cockpit-voice recorders were recovered. When replayed before the inquiry committee headed by a high court judge, they should provide valuable clues to what exactly caused the crash. Also crucial would be Tripathi's evidence. Tripathi says he heard a blast, saw Are and the plane disintegrating "more or less simultaneously". During descent he says the "aircraft did not wobble". If true, it reduces the possibility of an explosion on or engine problems are being cited as another reason for the crash. Pilots point out that the 737 was the second oldest aircraft in Indian Airline's Boeing fleet of 27 and had already flown for over 42,000 hours. Moreover, documents obtained by INDIA TODAY indicate that the aircraft had several snags four days prior to the crash. The most major fault was a heavy hydraulic leak from the landing gear. All the same, the possibility of engine failure is remote as the pilot would then have had sufficient time to radio a 'mayday'.But what surprised aviation experts was the readings of one of the pressurised altimeters found lying on the ground. It showed 450 feet when it should have been reading 182 feet (the average elevation of Ahmedabad). That raises the question whether commander Dalaya and his co-pilot Deepak Nagpal were relying on the faulty altimeter and hence had descended too low. Pilots, however, point out that there are three other altimeters on board and surely the crew would have cross-checked the many pilots believe that the altimeter may not have been defective after all. The approach instructions given to all pilots for landing at Ahmedabad pointedly warns them about the presence of trees and pylons at the height of 380-400 feet at one end of the runway. The altimeter reading of450 feet could mean that Dalaya flew into the trees and pylons, a possibility corroborated by Tripathi's description of the overwhelming number of aviation experts go for the theory of pilot error - coupled with a defective altimeter. The on-board instrument landing system showed that the aircraft was on line with the runway. All the flaps - which give the wings greater width - were down, indicating that the aircraft had begun descent. Dalaya had even radioed the tower saying: "I'm inbound. Will call when runway in sight." Many believe that the aircraft was descending too the visibility at the time of the crash - 2 km - was much higher than the minimum required, patches of smog could have clouded the crew's sight. Both pilots may have failed to check their altitude because they were searching for the runway and had descended to the minimum permissible altitude of 500 feet at Ahmedabad. By the time they realised that the ground was not far - or if a defective altimeter was showing 50 feet less than it should it would have been too late to pull B.S. Bhogal and co-pilot K.R. Reddy of the ill-fated Vayudoot flight seem to have been confronted by a similar problem. Experts say that despite bad weather it was safe enough for Bhogal to land. There was certainly no reason for him to have veered almost 20 degrees off course and crash into a hill. Unless while concentrating on sighting the runway, the two pilots had dangerously dropped their height below the minimum of 2,000 feet, gone off course and crashed into a Air Marshal C.K.S. Raje, chairman, National Airports Authority of India (NAA), and a veteran aviator, says: "It seems there was some kind of pilot disorientation in both the cases that saw them lose height so rapidly. Only the inquiry report will be able to pinpoint the cause."While the real cause of both the crashes is still a mystery, it would be too simplistic to presume that there was only one single factor. Says Captain B.K. Bhasin, former deputy managing director of Indian Airlines and a veteran pilot: "Plane disasters are usually a complex interplay of factors and there are three or four causes for a crash."Bhasin is right. In a way, both the crashes are symptomatic of the basic problems that have made the country's domestic airliners increasingly unsafe. Whether it is pilots ignoring established procedures; maintenance staff hurrying through mandatory checks; instrument landing systems not working; bad management practices and ineffective regulatory authorities - they all indicate a rapidly collapsing system where flight safety is the first casualty. Says a veteran aviator: "The system is rotten to the core. It's just a miracle that we haven't had more crashes."At the core of the problem is bad management and poor planning. Indian Airlines' passenger traffic has been growing at a brisk 11 per cent annually. It touched 10.44 million last year (1980:6.2 million). But for the past three years, the airline hasn't augmented its fleet of 11 Airbus, 27 Boeing 737s and eight Avros. And though the airline is purchasing 19 A320s from Airbus Industries which should begin arriving by next May, neither the pilots nor the engineers have been sent for say that the airline is heavily overloaded would therefore be an understatement - half its flights are delayed every day, there are no standby aircraft, it is always cutting corners, skipping maintenance schedules and ignoring mechanical snags in order to keep its services moving. Each Boeing 737, the workhorse of the fleet, flew for 3,185 hours last year, a big jump from 2,652 hours in 1984. (The world average for a Boeing 737 is just 2,700 hours). This tendency to over work aircraft has obviously taken its toll on safety. Precautionary landings and abandoned take-offs rose to a dramatic 2 50 last year from just 130 in 1980. Worse, the airline has had five major accidents, both fatal and non-fatal, since overloading is the problem at Indian Airlines, at Vayudoot it is unbridled expansion. The airline opens new stations at the drop of a civil aviation minister's hat. While in 1983 it was flying to 18 stations, by last year it was servicing 91. The country's third airline now has a fleet of 18 Dorniers apart from five vintage Avros and three Fokker Friendships. But its maintenance units continue to be poorly run and pilots are greatly overworked. In the past two years alone, it has had five major accidents, with the recent Guwahati crash resulting in passenger catching up as a feeder service is Pawan Hans, formerly the Helicopter Corporation of India. It has a fleet of 21 Dauphines and 19 of the controversial Westland helicopters - which have had rotor problems-and runs shuttle services in several states apart from servicing its main customer, the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC).Already, Pawan Hans' track record is badly flawed. Two months ago it had two major crashes, killing 17 people. Its problems are familiar: poor maintenance and a tendency to push people and machines to the limit. For instance, under pressure to land in bad weather on an ONGC platform off the Pondicherry coast, a pilot tipped the helicopter into the sea, killing all 10 people on the airlines displaying an utter disregard for safety norms, it was just a matter of time before a major air disaster jolted the country. Says an aviation expert: "It's incredible how these airlines run on such bush operations and roadside mechanic type of maintenance. What they don't seem to realise is that while you can stop and check your car if it malfunctions, planes just drop from the sky." Certainly, the country's airlines stand guilty of an unprofessional attitude in several key areas:Cockpit management: The world over, increasing emphasis is being placed on discipline and teamwork in the cockpit. But not so in India. Though the NAA has worked out a standard landing procedure for most Indian airports, a senior Indian Airlines pilot admits: "Hardly a quarter of us go by the manual. And the standard call-outs to check various instruments are rarely done."Experts also complain of pilots "hot rodding on runways, taking steep and unsafe turns and cutting corners due to overconfidence." On August 9 last year, instead of proceeding to the apron, a Vayudoot pilot at Calcutta airport took the Dornier aircraft towards the hangar without permission. He foolishly shut his engines. The plane, VTEIP, was on a gradient and it began to roll. Since the engines were off, the hydraulic brakes did not work and the aircraft crashed into a van. It was completely damaged but fortunately the passengers on-board escaped Airlines pilots too are accused of a casual approach. On June 18 this year, a Boeing belly-landed at Delhi airport because the two pilots wanted to practise a 'Leh landing'. This involves deploying wing flaps to a lesser degree and landing at a high speed on a shorter runway. The pilots shut the aircraft's alarm systems which go off if the flaps are not fully down while landing. But while descending they forgot to lower their undercarriage. The alarm would automatically have given a call - "whoop, whoop, pull up," - if the plane came too low without its wheels down. But since the alarm was switched off, there was no warning and the plane made a belly-landing. Miraculously, there were no relative inexperience of the new breed of co-pilots and their questionable ability to help out pilots in case of an emergency is another problem. Pilots no longer need experience on turbo-props before graduating as co-pilots in jets. Thus the captain of a Boeing with around 4,000 hours of flying is usually far senior to the co-pilot, who may have just 500 flying hours. And the younger man is often too scared to warn the commander of a instance, the doomed Boeing which crashed at Ahmedabad was being co-piloted by 26-year-old Nagpal, a direct recruit into jets. He joined the airlines on April 6, 1987 and was cleared as co-pilot only on May 27 this year. His total flying time was around 500 hours, of which 300 hours were on Boeings. On the other hand, Captain Dalaya, 37, joined the airline on April 24, 1979 and flew as a co-pilot on Fokker Friendships till he was given command on March 19, 1983. He was endorsed as a Boeing co-pilot on April 1, 1986 and was given command on August 19 last year. He had 5,985 hours of flying, with a total of 2,963 hours as flight commander. The relative inexperience of Nagpal could have hampered reactions in a Ahmedabad tragedy has galvanised Indian Airlines into taking some corrective measures. Says Captain N.S. Ramachandran, deputy managing director: "We plan to do random checks of cockpit voice recorders to see if pilots are doing standard call-outs and observing mandatory procedures." But unless cockpit discipline is strictly enforced, these steps will remain woefully maintenance: If there are problems in the cockpit, the stories from the hangar are no less hair-raising. On September 25, after an Airbus flight took off from Hyderabad, the pilot found that the engines were not developing full power. He immediately brought it down and had the aircraft grounded. The maintenance department claimed that it had rectified the snag and the Airbus flew to Madras. On the very next flight, the pilot again found loss of power and again had it grounded. After the snag was supposedly rectified, the aircraft was sent to Bombay where other pilots observed the same are bitter complaints from pilots about mechanical snags not being properly rectified and aircraft being cleared indiscriminately. Apart from major checks after 500 to 600 hours of flying, every transit flight has a kick around check, a night halt and flashlight check, aimed at spotting any leaking parts or visual damage to the engine or landing gear. But as one pilot says: "What happens is pencil whipping over the various mandatory checks."Most maintenance is skipped using the minimum equipment list or MEL prescribed by manufacturers as an excuse. Under this manual, an aircraft can be allowed to fly even with certain snags that do not directly affect flight safety. Pilots have now become familiar with the terms engineers use to overlook snags - carry forward under MEL. To be rectified during night halt to avoid delays. Rechecked and found okay. Cleaned and found okay. Last week, the Indian Express published a blank maintenance form that had the signature of the engineer authorised to clear engineers admit that they are under pressure from their supervisors to release aircraft with snags. The problem is compounded because the main Boeing workshop is in Delhi while the Airbus is repaired in Bombay. If a Boeing develops problems at other airports, another aircraft carrying engineers and components has to fly to the spot. P.N. Kumar, Indian Airline's deputy managing director in charge of engineering, admits: "There are no standby aircraft and this puts pressure on maintenance."The stories from Vayudoot are even more shocking. The fuel injection nozzles in the Dornier aircraft are supposed to be cleaned every 200 hours or else carbon builds up, resulting in inefficient fuel burning and torching of the engine. But it was found that although many aircraft had completed over 2,000 hours of flying, the fuel nozzles had never been cleaned. Vayudoot's problems are compounded by the fact that most of the senior engineers are retired Indian Airlines employees who have no long-term stake in the Vardhan, the young managing-director, dismisses all charges against the company and says that special efforts have been made to improve maintenance. Says he: "Much of the complaints are motivated by manufacturers because we have pointed defects in the aircraft."Airport landing systems: Just before Vayudoot's PF 704 rammed into a hill last fortnight, the pilot called the control tower and complained that the instrument landing systems (ILS) to guide his descent were faulty. The air traffic controller is reported to have checked and said it was working. Likewise, in Ahmedabad, the distance measuring equipment was said to be out of order, though NAA officials deny frequently complain of inadequate and faulty navigation aids at several airports. Out of 90 airports in India, just 26 have some sort of ILS aids and only the international airports are fully equipped; only now are radars being installed to cover Indian air space; weather reports are still far from accurate. Says Air Marshal Raje: "Ideally every airport should have an ILS and radar coverage. But it costs money and we just don't have it." A phenomenal 36 per cent of the air accidents in the world happen during landing and wherever accurate landing systems have been installed, safety has improved facilities continue to be poor, especially in the smaller airports. It was due to this very reason that a Vayudoot aircraft crashed in Aurangabad this August. Though the plane was destroyed, luckily there were no casualties. Just before the aircraft was landing, a meteorologist recorded stiff gusts of winds capable of blowing it off-course. Since the control tower telephones weren't working, he ran up the five flights of stairs to convey the message. But by the time he reached there, the plane had facilities in Indian airports are dismal. But airlines exacerbate the problem by being careless about their operations. For instance, Pawan Hans was running shuttle services to Vaishnodevi, where there were no landing aids or radio communication. Result: in August a helicopter crashed when it ran into clouds while trying to land. All the 12 people on board bodies: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is the country's watchdog for air safety. But it hardly bites and rarely engineers constantly pull the wool over the DGCA's eyes. On September 29, Vayudoot engineers commissioned an aircraft that had been grounded for a month due to engine trouble, claiming it had been repaired. The DGCA promptly gave it a certificate. But when the pilot took off he found that he was not getting half the power in the engines and came back cursing. The DGCA did not take any action against the erring mechanics. Not surprisingly, DGCA visits to the hangar are called "tea and samosa time" - where air worthiness certificates are issued without much its staff strength has not kept pace with airlines' fleet expansion. In fact, it was reduced to a third of its original size after the NAA was formed, divesting it of air traffic control and airport maintenance. Indicative of the importance the Civil Aviation Ministry gives DGCA is the fact that for over two years a technically qualified director-general has not been appointed. Sen is an IAS officer who is also a joint secretary in the ministry. Till now these factors had not really damaged the airlines' track record. The last major Indian Airlines crash took place in August 1979, when an Avro HS 748 rammed into a hill, killing 45. But since 1984, the airline has had four major non-fatal accidents - where the aircraft was either totally wrecked or extensively damaged. The Indian average 'hull' (aircraft) loss rate of one for every 2.15 lakh hours is twice the world average of one for every 4.65 lakh hours, and is comparable to Asia's average of 2.35 lakh the same, statistics show that all over the world air travel is still the safest means of transport. In India, unfortunately, the dividing line has been allowed to shrink to dangerous levels. In that sense, the two air crashes may have come as a timely warning. They have certainly brought to the forefront the problems dogging the country's airlines and introduced a sense of urgency in implementing as Bhasin points out: "Improving air safety is not a baby show. It's a Herculean task. There is no easy solution to these things." That is compounded by the fact that Indian Airlines and Vayudoot are run like stodgy bureaucracies, have powerful unions and weak managements, are riddled with political interference, and get away with glaring' flaws because they are monopolistic corporations. But the need for quick reform is imperative. Otherwise, black Wednesday may easily be repeated.—With Salil Tripathi in Ahmedabad and Ramesh Menon in GuwahatiSubscribe to India Today Magazine
