Flight captain was very experienced, did safety checks: Pilot association
NEW DELHI: The pilot in command of the ill-fated Air India flight Sumit Sabharwal, was a highly experienced pilot with more than 8,000 hours of flying experience and was himself involved in safety checks of flights, said Captain C S Randhawa, president of the Federation of Indian Pilots Association.
The Association has around 6,000 members and Sabharwal was one of them. 'We push a lot for flight safety and he was one of us.' Captain Sabharwal was a Line Training Captain and his job involved carrying out flight checks, he said.
Recalling his personal life, the president said, 'Sabharwal was a resident of Mumbai, must be 55 or 56 years, he added. Recalling what he knew about him personally, Randhawa said, 'He was single and took care of his elderly father. He has a sister too. '
The co-pilot, Clive Kunder, had 1000-plus hours of flying, he added. 'Overall, the crew was very experienced,' he added.
Air India Delhi CEO's flight to Paris turns back
Following the Air India crash incident, the airline's flight AI 143 from Delhi to Paris carrying its CEO Campbell Wilson on board made a turn midair and returned, reveals flight tracking websites. He left for Ahmedabad after the incident.
Wilson was on his way to Paris for participation in the Air Show which is set to commence next week, said a source. He later made a statement.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hindu
37 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Air India Ahmedabad-London flight crash: Auto driver turns carpenter; crafts coffins for victims
Sawdust coats every surface of Nilesh Vaghela's home in Hari Nagar Society, where the 47-year-old auto-rickshaw driver has transformed into an unlikely hero of Ahmedabad's darkest hour. Since receiving an urgent call from Air India hours after Thursday's crash (June 12, 2025), Mr. Vaghela has been working round-the-clock, crafting coffins for victims with the precision of a seasoned carpenter. 'I've delivered 80 coffins so far, with 20 more to go by today evening,' Mr. Vaghela told The Hindu, his bloodshot eyes betraying three straight days of working 21-hour shifts. Air India Ahmedabad plane crash LIVE: Identities of 31 victims ascertained through DNA tests Father of a teenager, Mr. Vaghela, who normally earns his living ferrying passengers, has barely slept since the disaster, surviving on short naps between measuring, cutting, and assembling the simple wooden boxes that will cradle his city's dead. 'I'm cutting the wood and assembling the boxes and attending to the never-ending phone calls from the hospital to supply the coffins immediately — all at once. I can't rest until I complete the deliveries,' he said. Ahmedabad plane crash: Giant plane tears through hostel; some students missing, 60 hurt When he first got a call requesting coffins for all victims, Mr. Vaghela — who occasionally built coffins for extra income — had to calculate how many he could realistically produce. 'I told them 100 in two days was all I could promise at first,' he recalled. 'More than business, I consider this as a seva (service) to humanity,' Mr. Vaghela said. He has even sought help from his neighbours to store the coffins in their buildings, as his own home does not have enough space. 'Many ask me why I make coffins despite being a Hindu… I tell them it's not about religion or anything else — it's about humanity. Now, everyone has come forward to help me store the boxes,' he said. Air India plane crashed just moments after takeoff from Ahmedabad; pilot gave mayday call Each coffin carved by Mr. Vaghela carries no name — only the silence of lives abruptly lost, and the stories that never be told. 'I'm making more than 30 boxes a day. I don't have any workers — this isn't my regular job. And anyway, which coffin maker would keep hundreds of boxes ready in advance? This is such a tragic incident. How could anyone foresee a day like this?' he added.
Indian Express
an hour ago
- Indian Express
Air India plane crash: Ansari's video clue points to equipment-linked emergency, possible power backup deployment; Flight Data Recorder holds key
A video of the last moments of the doomed Air India Boeing 787-8 could offer new insight into the crash till the time the flight data recorder (FDR) data is analysed. The video, shot by a class 12 student and amateur terrace photographer Aryan Ansari, could challenge a few theories doing the rounds on what might have led to the crash in Ahmedabad—the deadliest disaster involving an Indian airline in decades and the world's first-ever Boeing 787 crash. While aviation experts did speculate whether the APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) or RAT (Ram Air Turbine)—both emergency power sources on the aircraft—were deployed, the clearer video sourced directly from Ansari's phone seems to suggest that the RAT was down. That ties in with what the sole survivor testified to—a loud bang accompanied by the light going out, and then a green light coming in the cabin. And the captain's mayday call. The bang could be indicative of a lower hatch giving way and the RAT being deployed automatically, a regulatory source said, while adding that there could be other triggers for a loud sound too. The RAT is essentially a wind turbine located just behind the landing gear console that deploys into the airstream to generate power only when primary and secondary power sources fail. The APU is a smaller turbine engine, typically located in the tail section of the aircraft, that provides electrical and pneumatic power for various on-board systems. Now, a dual engine failure is the rarest-of-rare event. But if the RAT deployed, it means there was a grave emergency—either a total electrical failure, a debilitating hydraulic failure, or a dual-engine failure, or a combination of these or more factors. Given the appearance of not sufficient lift and loss of thrust, the dual-engine failure theory, which many experts earlier said was not probable but still theoretically possible, could now well be a leading question for investigators to look into. At a media briefing on Saturday, Civil Aviation Minister K Ram Mohan Naidu had said that investigators will look at all the theories doing the rounds. To be sure, it is too early to jump to any conclusion based on the initial video evidence, considering aircraft are extremely sophisticated and complex machines and detailed and painstaking investigations are required to ascertain the exact cause or combination of causes. All that the clearer video now available does, however, is provide investigators with a crucial clue. Fuel contamination or clogging of fuel can lead to the engines being starved, leading to a sudden shutdown. A source at the airport did indicate that refuelling took longer than usual (at 42 minutes), but a few others indicated that this was not really an out-of-the-ordinary occurrence for a long-distance international flight with full load. Could it have been bird strikes? The footage available so far does not seem to suggest that. Also, although the Ahmedabad airport has a higher-than-average count of bird hits compared to other airports in the country, it would again be a rarest-of-rare event for a bird hit to disable both engines together. So far, there is no evidence to suggest such a significant bird strike, neither in the initial footage of the aircraft accident, nor at the airfield in the form of bird carcasses. Coming to the RAT deployment, the device is a last resort for providing basic power to the aircraft when everything else fails. But the RAT is more useful at higher or cruising altitudes, giving the pilots enough time to land at the closest available airfield. Neither time nor altitude was available to the pilots of flight AI-171. The plane had just lifted off the runway and was barely at an altitude of 625 feet—400-odd feet if Ahmedabad airport's 200-feet elevation is accounted for—before it crashed within moments. The odds that an aviation accident has a single trigger are rare, and crashes usually have a series of things that go wrong together or one leading to another. The one thing that experts were increasingly converging on before Ansari's clearer video emerged was that the landing gear of AI-171 was down and flaps were perhaps not retracted, well after the aircraft climbed off the runway. The possibility of an erroneous retraction of the flaps, instead of the gear, was a possibility that some were pointing to. The apparent lack of lift, something that the sole survivor attested to when he said the plane seemed to hang mid-air before going down, seemed to attest to this theory. The RAT deployment. though, changes all of this entirely. From the available videos, the rate of rotation (the action of pulling back a yoke or centre stick to lift the nose wheel off the ground during takeoff) appears to have been fine, but the undercarriage not being lifted up despite the aircraft being airborne is when things seem to have started going wrong. The landing gear should have been retracted by the time the time the aircraft reached 100 feet, after the 'positive rate' of climb is achieved, which is when the captain gives the 'gear up' command to the co-pilot for retracting the landing gear. The gear being down, along with incorrect wing flap configuration, together would lead to insufficient lift coupled with significant drag. Even a partial loss of thrust could have potentially impacted the lift given that landing gear was down. The pilots pulling the nose up towards the end seems to suggest a desperate move as the terrain warning would've started sounding in the cockpit While the FDR has been found, and will certainly provide deep insights into the reasons of the crash, the other black box—cockpit voice recorder (CVR)—will also be critical in the investigation, the details of the pilots' interaction with each other and the air traffic control will emerge from it, and so will the details of the warnings and alarms that would have been sounded in the cockpit before the fatal crash. Sukalp Sharma is a Senior Assistant Editor with The Indian Express and writes on a host of subjects and sectors, notably energy and aviation. He has over 13 years of experience in journalism with a body of work spanning areas like politics, development, equity markets, corporates, trade, and economic policy. He considers himself an above-average photographer, which goes well with his love for travel. ... Read More Anil Sasi is National Business Editor with the Indian Express and writes on business and finance issues. He has worked with The Hindu Business Line and Business Standard and is an alumnus of Delhi University. ... Read More
The Print
2 hours ago
- The Print
Post Air India crash, Vadodara coffin maker races to deliver 100. Last bulk order was after Bhuj earthquake
In a large hall of the church, Nelvin's family and a dozen others from the Christian community are racing to finish the order, so that the coffins can be sent to the Civil Hospital Ahmedabad where the bodies are being kept. Nelvin wasn't prepared for such a large request. 'But I couldn't say no. This work is for the country. Even small children died in the accident,' he said to ThePrint, never pausing as he continued building coffins at the Centenary Methodist Church complex in Vadodara's Fatehganj area. Vadodara: Around 8 pm Friday—a day after the Air India 171 crash—Nelvin Bhai Rajwadi got a call from an Air India official in Ahmedabad. The official placed an urgent order for 100 coffins. Nelvin recalled, 'When I first got the call, I thought it would be just for a few coffins, but it turned out to be a bulk order. Within 2 hours, with support from the community, we managed to arrange plywood, white cloth, and other materials needed to make them,' he said. 'For the past 24 hours, we've been working non-stop.' Around 15 members of the Christian community were involved in the effort. On Friday night, plywood and cloth were transported to the church complex, and work began. 'We worked all night together to finish and help the administration in this tough time. We took it as a challenge…. We got a chance to serve the country and this is our contribution,' said Nelvin, adding that a coffin that would normally costs Rs 6,000 is being provided for Rs 3,000 for this order. On Saturday night at 10 pm, when ThePrint reached the Church complex, 35 coffins were loaded on the truck and sent to Ahmedabad. Nelvin is the only one to have received a bulk order. The administration ordered a few from Ahmedabad before the process of handing over bodies to families began Saturday. On Thursday afternoon, the London-bound Air India flight crashed near Ahmedabad airport minutes after takeoff. The flight was carrying 242 people, including crew members. All but one passenger—a British national of Indian origin—died in the crash. The crash also claimed several more lives when the aircraft slammed into the hostel mess of BJ Medical College. Most of the bodies, charred beyond recognition, are in the process of being identified through DNA testing. Civil Hospital Ahmedabad has also collected DNA samples from the relatives of all passengers and crew members who were on board the aircraft for DNA matching. The Gujarat government has created 230 teams to establish contact with families of victims of the plane crash. Also read: This Air India crash eyewitness cheated death by a whisker—'a blast, then a fireball, just 200 m away' In coffin making for three decades Nelvin, 60, has been in the coffin-making business for over three decades. The last time he received a bulk order from the administration was during the 2001 Bhuj earthquake. Nelvin recalled that during the Bhuj earthquake, they made coffins right on the roadside and managed to dispatch 40 of them at record speed. He has also supplied coffins to the Railways and the Air Force. Nelvin also runs an ambulance service in Vadodara. Until last year, he held a technical position at MS University, Vadodara, before retiring. 'We have seen many tough times but the scale this time is very big,' said Nelvin. It takes about 2 and a half hours to make one coffin which has a standard size of 6 feet by 2 feet, said Sanjeev, who has been doing this work for years. 'It's a difficult task,' he said, while fastening a coffin with a stapler, 'but it's nothing compared to what the families who lost their loved ones are going through.' Explaining the process, Sanjeev said that first a structure of a coffin is made from the raw material and then white cloth is wrapped around it. 'Nelvin bhai got a call and then reached out to everyone. We gathered here and started working. We're doing this for the people of the country,' said Aldrin Thomas, a social worker based in Vadodara. Breena Rajvadi, wife of Nelvin's son Arnish, immediately stepped in to help with the coffin-making as soon as she heard about the order. When I heard about the crash, I had a feeling that my father-in-law might get a call for coffins,' said Breena. 'We were thinking that Papa might be contacted, given the scale of the tragedy. And the next day, we got the order.' She added that making the coffins at speed has been an incredibly challenging task. Arnish, too, is hard at work beside his family. 'Mentally we were not prepared but we are working continuously to complete it. We worked all night and started working as soon as we got the phone call,' he said. (Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri) Also read: Air India crash: All 4 hostel buildings of BJ Medical College emptied amid site investigation
