'My daughter died in crash - 37 years earlier another relative died on flight'
Sanjana Palkhiwala was one of at least 270 people who died when an Air India plane crashed in the city of Ahmedabad on Saturday. Her father, Saurin Palkhiwala had previously lost a relative in a plane crash
Last week, tragedy struck when an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed into the hostel block of B. J. Medical College in Ahmedabad, resulting in at least 270 fatalities.
Among those who perished was 26-year-old Sanjana Palkhiwala, who tragically lost her life en route to a reunion with university mates in the UK. Saurin Palkhiwala, Sanjana's father and a businessman, knows the agony of air disaster all too well, having a family link to the Indian Airlines Flight 113 catastrophe in 1988, which claimed 133 lives.
"When I got the news of the AI 171 plane crash, shock numbed me, as I had witnessed a crash site before. Instinctively, I knew I had lost my daughter and prayed for her. I rushed home from the office, picked up my wife Sonali, and left for Civil Hospital," Palkhiwala shared with The Times of India.
He also confided that accepting his daughter's passing as divine will has been the only solace for him and his wife during such an ordeal.
"Sanjana was born to us 14 years after marriage. My wife is an ardent devotee of Goddess Gayatri, and when Sanjana was born, we were grateful for the divine gift."
Meanwhile, ex-AAIB crash investigator Captain Kishore Chinta conveyed to the BBC that one of the black boxes might be sent to the United States 'to compare the data downloaded in India with that provided to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)."
The first fatal incident involving a Boeing Dreamliner has tragically unfolded with the crash of Air India Flight 171. The cause of the disaster is still a mystery, following Boeing 's troubles that began in March 2019, when the 737 MAX was grounded due to safety concerns.
Flight AI 171's crew sent out a distress signal after losing power and thrust shortly after takeoff, indicating a severe power outage. The plane was in the air for just about 30 seconds, covering less than a mile before it catastrophically fell from the sky, leading to multiple explosions and an immense inferno.
The devastating crash claimed the lives of 241 passengers and crew on board, along with at least 39 individuals on the ground within the hostel buildings. Ramesh Viswashkumar, aged 40 and the only passenger to survive, recounted the harrowing experience to Indian reporters.
'Thirty seconds after takeoff, there was a loud noise, and then the plane crashed,' he recounted. 'It all happened so quickly.
'When I got up,' he continued, 'there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me.'
Viswashkumar, who was sitting in seat 11A, miraculously lived through the ordeal, unlike his brother Ajay, who was also on board but seated in a different row and perished in the crash.
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Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Plane crash disaster attorney reveals technical flaw she believes caused Air India tragedy
A former Inspector General of the US Department of Transportation has posited a new theory on the cause of the tragic crash of Air India Flight 171 earlier this month that killed 271 people. Mary Schiavo, a transportation expert and lead attorney in the aviation department at law firm Motley Rice, suggested that a computer error could have caused the Boeing 787 Dreamliner's engines to throttle back. This would account for the loss of thrust shortly after takeoff, she said - a phenomenon that has happened before. 'I believe this crash was a computer problem. There are several 787 components that rely on computer code to tell the plane whether it is in the air or on the ground. 'If the computer or code malfunctions, the engines spool back and the thrust is reduced, even if in flight,' Schiavo, who has represented victims of several air disasters in the US, told The Mirror. 'This happened on an ANA (Japan 's Air Nippon Airways) 787 flight in 2019, which suffered a dual engine failure on landing, and I'm afraid it could have occurred on the fatal Air India Flight 171.' Her analysis differs from that of Steve Schreiber, a longtime airline pilot who also performs analyses of aviation disasters and close calls. He said the plane likely suffered a dual-engine failure due to a significant electrical or hydraulic fault. Schreiber explained that footage from the crash showed the plane's Ram Air Turbine (RAT) had deployed - a telltale sign of a loss of power on board. This small propeller drops from underneath the plane's fuselage to act as a backup generator in the event of a major loss of electrical power or hydraulic pressure. Meanwhile, the sole survivor of the crash, 40-year-old British citizen Vishwash Ramesh, said that lights on board the plane began flickering shortly before the disaster occurred. Ramesh, who miraculously escaped with minor injuries, revealed from his hospital bed after the catastrophe: 'When the flight took off, within five to ten seconds it felt like it was stuck in the air. 'Suddenly, the lights started flickering - green and white - then the plane rammed into some establishment that was there.' The doomed passenger jet's cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) were recovered within days of the crash on Thursday, June 12. Together, these devices constitute the plane's 'black box' that saves valuable data for investigators to determine the chain of events that led to the crash and to identify the catalyst. India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) launched a detailed investigation, and the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is conducting a parallel probe under international protocols since the aircraft is American-made. Both Boeing, which manufactures the 787 Dreamliner aeroplane which crashed, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced they had teams standing by to support investigators. Preliminary findings of the investigation into the crash are expected to be released within a month, and the full report is expected to take up to a year to be made public. But a Boeing whistleblower has questioned the delay, pointing out that authorities would know '95%' of the details of the crash from the contents of the black box within days of its recovery. Joe Jacobsen worked at both Boeing and the FAA for decades. He was also responsible for raising the alarm about issues at the aeronautic giant in the wake of two fatal crashes involving the 737 MAX aircraft that killed a total of 346 people. Jacobsen told the Mail: 'Investigators would be able to have a pretty good idea of what happened within a week, and I would think they definitely should have 95 per cent of the information within a month.' He said: 'It only takes a couple of days to download (black box data) and have a look at that. 'But then the next 11 months are used up by people trying to control the message, and point fingers at one another, who's responsible, who's not responsible.' Jacobsen's worry is that, if the cause of the crash turns out to be a systemic issue across the 787 Dreamliner fleet, another fatal accident could happen before it has been publicly identified and addressed. While observers await the report by India's AAIB, experts continue to offer their takes on what may have caused the crash. Despite the deployment of the RAT, a double engine failure is an extremely rare occurrence. The leading causes of such a failure are fuel contamination or clogging, and questions are being asked about the maintenance of refuelling equipment and where fuel is stored at the airport. Another possibility raised by some experts in India is that birds may have collided with the plane moments after takeoff. This can be catastrophic, especially if they are sucked into the engines. Gujarat state, where Ahmedabad is located, reported 462 bird strike incidents over five years, with most occurring at Ahmedabad airport, according to Indian government figures from December 2023. Pilot error has also not yet been completely ruled out. The pilot, Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, 56, had over 8,000 hours of flying experience. The co-pilot, Clive Kunder, 34, had about 1,000 hours. Air India flight 171 crashed less than a minute after leaving the runway and was unable to climb above 625ft. This has led some to speculate that its flaps, which are vital for generating maximum lift, might not have been properly extended. These claims prompted India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the country's aviation regulator, to demand that Air India hand over the pilots' training records, qualifications, flight history, medical records and details of any actions that might have been taken against them. Before the Ahmedabad disaster, there had been no fatalities tied Boeing's Dreamliner model. But there have been numerous concerns and claims by whistleblowers over their safety since they took to the skies some 14 years ago. Former Boeing employee John Barnett, who worked for the company for more than 30 years at its North Charleston plant in the US, where the jet is built, claimed that sub-standard parts were deliberately fitted to prevent production delays. Former Boeing engineer Sam Salehpour revealed that he raised concerns about 'manufacturing shortcuts' only to be told to 'shut up' by his bosses. Since the crash, Air India has revealed that it had cancelled five international flights it operates using a 787-8 Dreamliner. Days on from the disaster, an Air India jet on the same route as doomed flight 171 was cancelled because of 'precautionary checks'. A flight from Gatwick to Amritsar, in north India, was also axed, and an Air India flight bound for Delhi from Hong Kong turned back after the pilot suspected a technical issue. Then, on Tuesday, the DGCA said it had found multiple instances of aircraft defects reappearing 'many times' at Mumbai and Delhi airports, two of the country's busiest, indicating what it said were inadequate checks on jetliners. The findings were part of a special audit being carried out to strengthen safety in the wake of a deadly Air India crash. The regulator did not name the airlines where the defects were found or detail the type of defects. The two airports in the world's third-largest aviation market serve major Indian airlines such as IndiGo, Air India and Air India Express, as well as many international carriers. The repeated instances of defects indicated 'ineffective monitoring and inadequate rectification action', the DGCA said. The government body also found other violations such as an aircraft maintenance engineer not taking prescribed safety precautions, not addressing defects in some places and work order not being followed in jet maintenance.
Reuters
a day ago
- Reuters
Authorities identify all but one of 260 victims of Air India plane crash
AHMEDABAD, India, June 24 (Reuters) - Authorities in Gujarat state said on Tuesday they had identified all but one of 260 bodies recovered following an Air India plane crash earlier this month in the western city of Ahmedabad. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with 242 people on board, bound for London's Gatwick Airport, lost height seconds after taking off from Ahmedabad on June 12 and erupted in a fireball as it hit a medical college hostel. There was one survivor among those on the plane, and the crash also killed 19 people on ground. The death count was below the authorities' earlier estimate of 270 but officials remained cautious on the final toll. "We have identified 259 victims. They include 240 passengers and 19 non-passengers. DNA test result of one passenger is still awaited," said Rakesh Joshi, superintendent of Ahmedabad civil hospital. "The site of the crash is still being cleared. Unless we are certain that no additional victims are going to be found, we cannot declare the final death toll," Joshi added. The remains of the 256 people have been handed over to their families, the local government said in a statement, adding that 253 victims were identified through DNA sample matching and the remaining six through facial identification.
Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Daily Mirror
'My daughter died in crash - 37 years earlier another relative died on flight'
Sanjana Palkhiwala was one of at least 270 people who died when an Air India plane crashed in the city of Ahmedabad on Saturday. Her father, Saurin Palkhiwala had previously lost a relative in a plane crash Last week, tragedy struck when an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed into the hostel block of B. J. Medical College in Ahmedabad, resulting in at least 270 fatalities. Among those who perished was 26-year-old Sanjana Palkhiwala, who tragically lost her life en route to a reunion with university mates in the UK. Saurin Palkhiwala, Sanjana's father and a businessman, knows the agony of air disaster all too well, having a family link to the Indian Airlines Flight 113 catastrophe in 1988, which claimed 133 lives. "When I got the news of the AI 171 plane crash, shock numbed me, as I had witnessed a crash site before. Instinctively, I knew I had lost my daughter and prayed for her. I rushed home from the office, picked up my wife Sonali, and left for Civil Hospital," Palkhiwala shared with The Times of India. He also confided that accepting his daughter's passing as divine will has been the only solace for him and his wife during such an ordeal. "Sanjana was born to us 14 years after marriage. My wife is an ardent devotee of Goddess Gayatri, and when Sanjana was born, we were grateful for the divine gift." Meanwhile, ex-AAIB crash investigator Captain Kishore Chinta conveyed to the BBC that one of the black boxes might be sent to the United States 'to compare the data downloaded in India with that provided to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)." The first fatal incident involving a Boeing Dreamliner has tragically unfolded with the crash of Air India Flight 171. The cause of the disaster is still a mystery, following Boeing 's troubles that began in March 2019, when the 737 MAX was grounded due to safety concerns. Flight AI 171's crew sent out a distress signal after losing power and thrust shortly after takeoff, indicating a severe power outage. The plane was in the air for just about 30 seconds, covering less than a mile before it catastrophically fell from the sky, leading to multiple explosions and an immense inferno. The devastating crash claimed the lives of 241 passengers and crew on board, along with at least 39 individuals on the ground within the hostel buildings. Ramesh Viswashkumar, aged 40 and the only passenger to survive, recounted the harrowing experience to Indian reporters. 'Thirty seconds after takeoff, there was a loud noise, and then the plane crashed,' he recounted. 'It all happened so quickly. 'When I got up,' he continued, 'there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me.' Viswashkumar, who was sitting in seat 11A, miraculously lived through the ordeal, unlike his brother Ajay, who was also on board but seated in a different row and perished in the crash.
