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Fire breaks out in coaches of express trains near Tirupati; none injured
Railway staff acted promptly, and fire tenders were immediately sent to the Tirupati railway station yard. A nearby Vande Bharat train, running on a parallel track, reportedly stopped in time, preventing a more serious situation.
Coaches gutted, but no casualties
According to a report by NDTV, eyewitnesses said they saw thick smoke and flames coming from two coaches early in the morning. The fire soon intensified and completely destroyed the affected coaches. So far, no injuries have been reported as the coaches were reportedly empty at the time.
Fire and rescue teams responded swiftly. Several fire engines were involved, and it took nearly an hour to fully put out the flames. The exact reason behind the fire is yet to be confirmed. A full investigation is now underway.
Though there were no passengers on board the burnt coaches, the damage to property is significant. Efforts are on to clear the charred coaches from the tracks and resume normal services.
'No danger at this point'
A Srinivasa Perumal, Superintendent of Police, told NDTV: "Rescue teams have taken full control of the train. There is no danger to life at this point." Seema Aggarwal, chief of fire services, added: "Our teams have reached the spot and are extinguishing. Since it's diesel, it's a challenge. Additional teams have been sent."
Due to the fire, people in nearby areas were evacuated as a precaution. Meanwhile, train movement between Chennai and other regions has been hit due to the fire. The Southern Railways announced the cancellation of eight trains from Chennai and the diversion of five others.
In a separate incident on Sunday morning, a freight train carrying 45 tankers of crude oil caught fire near Egattur, close to Thiruvallur. The train was travelling from Ennore in Chennai to Mumbai when one of the tankers caught fire. The flames quickly spread to nearby tankers, resulting in a massive blaze.
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3 hours ago
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Deliberate Or Mechanical Flaw? Pilots vs Pilot Over Air India Crash Report
New Delhi: The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau's preliminary report on its probe into the Air India crash on June 12, in which 260 people were killed, has stirred speculations and debates on two fronts. Firstly, whether there was a deliberate attempt made by the pilot to turn off the fuel switches from 'RUN' to 'CUTOFF' position during takeoff and secondly, the Wall Street Journal article, which came 20 hours and 8 minutes before the AAIB report was officially released, that focused on "Pilots' Actions and Plane's Fuel Switches". Earlier on NDTV, Captain Mohan Ranganathan, one of India's leading aviation experts and an ex-instructor of Boeing 737, made a stunning claim that the crash of AI171 may have been the result of deliberate human action because the fuel switches can only be moved "manually". However, former pilots and aviation experts have strongly opposed this view. In a roundtable of four aviation experts and ex-pilots, Mr Ranganathan's views were questioned, who stood by his claim of "deliberate manual selection". What Captain Ranganathan Said? On June 12, in an interview with NDTV, the aviation expert was asked if one of the pilots intentionally switched off the fuel, fully aware that doing so could cause a crash, to which Captain Ranganathan said, "Absolutely." On Monday, Mr Ranganathan reiterated his views and said, "The report (AAIB report) points to deliberate manual intervention. The US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) report has said this; there was nothing wrong with the switches today. The switches can't slide back to cut off. So it has to be pulled out and moved back. So that is possible only with a manual intervention." The probe team from AAIB found the fuel switches in the RUN position at the crash site However, Mr Ranganathan has questioned the "wishy-washy" nature of the report, which only mentions one line from the pilot's interaction - One pilot asked, "Why did you cut off?" The other replied, "I didn't". He has called for the release of the full cockpit voice recorder (CVR) data, which will have the sequence of who said what when the fuel switches transitioned to 'CUTOFF'. Captain Ranganathan, however, never inferred that it was done intentionally by the pilot to crash the plane, though he did mention that one of the pilots had a "medical history" and was on medical leave earlier, which led to Dreamliner Pilot Opposes "Manual Intervention Argument" Captain Rakesh Rai shared insights on the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner's characteristics, his experience of flying the same aircraft, and his views on the AAIB report and the "suicide angle" being debated. "Even if they (AAIB) don't want to publish the RT transcript at this stage, it is difficult to digest that only two sentences were spoken in the cockpit. If you look at the picture, which was published in the report, the aircraft is barely 50 to 80 feet or maybe 100 feet above the ground, and the RAT (Ram Air Turbine) is already deployed. It means that something happened right at the time of rotation, when the aircraft is just starting, and the engines have failed," he said. Captain Rai highlighted an important part of the report - The words used by AAIB to describe 'RUN' to 'CUTOFF'. He said they have used the word "transition", adding, "In these modern aeroplanes, you don't need to cut off the fuel control switch. Everything is transmitted electronically. So, even if the fuel switch is in the run position, it can go into the cutoff position without moving the fuel control switch. The fuel can just shut off. If there is something wrong with the software, it commands the fuel shutoff valve to close. With the fuel control switch still in run position, the engines can shut down." An excerpt from the AAIB report is as follows: "The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC, and immediately thereafter, the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of 01 sec. The Engine N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cut off." Captain Ranganathan differed with Captain Rai and said, "You can hold both the switches, pull them out and move," to which the Dreamliner pilot said, "I do not agree with that." Captain Rai said, asking for a full transcript of the pilots' conversation in the cockpit, said, "The report does not talk about the timeline when this sentence, 'Why did you CUTOFF?', was spoken, and that's an important point. "This sentence may have been spoken at a time when they were trying to relight the engine. So, the other pilot may have asked, Did you cut it off? He said, No." "If the pilot had done it deliberately, then there must have been a solid argument in the pilots will not keep quiet, right? There must have been a solid argument in the cockpit. Why did he do it? And you are going to kill all of us," he added. Manual Intervention? "Absolutely Absurd," Says Expert Captain Kishore Chinta, a chief pilot at Sirius India Airlines, strongly opposed Mr Ranganathan's views and said, "I find it absolutely absurd to say that the pilots planned to deliberately turn the switches off. For the simple reason that even if we go by the paraphrased, one sentence in the report, which says that one pilot asked, it is indicative of a surprise element, that it surprised one pilot, and the other pilot answered, Hey, I didn't do it. "The report is absolutely silent and paraphrasing in terms of the selective release of information. If there was a timestamp of each event with what happened in the cockpit in terms of warnings, what was the altitude, what was the engine parameters at that time, followed by cockpit voice recorder, CAM 1, CAM 2, the interaction between the pilots or any warnings picked up, all these would have given us a more, you know, clearer picture on if there was any deliberate action," he said. "Nobody is deliberating on the fact that these switches can be moved uncommanded? Everyone is saying they can only be physically moved. The only reason those switches are recycled is to reset the EEC logic. The electronic engine control logic is reset in case of a dual engine failure to reactivate the start cycle, the igniters and the fuel metering unit; all these logics are reset. If we go by the theory that it was a suicide, why even touch those switches? Takeover controls and just flip the wings over." 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9 hours ago
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Fire breaks out in coaches of express trains near Tirupati; none injured
A fire broke out on the Hisar Express near Tirupati railway station in Andhra Pradesh on Monday, causing panic among passengers and disrupting train operations in the area. Meanwhile, another train (Rayalaseema Express), travelling from Rajasthan to Tirupati, saw flames quickly spread through one of its coaches, according to a tweet by ANI. Railway staff acted promptly, and fire tenders were immediately sent to the Tirupati railway station yard. A nearby Vande Bharat train, running on a parallel track, reportedly stopped in time, preventing a more serious situation. Coaches gutted, but no casualties According to a report by NDTV, eyewitnesses said they saw thick smoke and flames coming from two coaches early in the morning. The fire soon intensified and completely destroyed the affected coaches. So far, no injuries have been reported as the coaches were reportedly empty at the time. Fire and rescue teams responded swiftly. Several fire engines were involved, and it took nearly an hour to fully put out the flames. The exact reason behind the fire is yet to be confirmed. A full investigation is now underway. Though there were no passengers on board the burnt coaches, the damage to property is significant. Efforts are on to clear the charred coaches from the tracks and resume normal services. 'No danger at this point' A Srinivasa Perumal, Superintendent of Police, told NDTV: "Rescue teams have taken full control of the train. There is no danger to life at this point." Seema Aggarwal, chief of fire services, added: "Our teams have reached the spot and are extinguishing. Since it's diesel, it's a challenge. Additional teams have been sent." Due to the fire, people in nearby areas were evacuated as a precaution. Meanwhile, train movement between Chennai and other regions has been hit due to the fire. The Southern Railways announced the cancellation of eight trains from Chennai and the diversion of five others. In a separate incident on Sunday morning, a freight train carrying 45 tankers of crude oil caught fire near Egattur, close to Thiruvallur. The train was travelling from Ennore in Chennai to Mumbai when one of the tankers caught fire. The flames quickly spread to nearby tankers, resulting in a massive blaze.
