Air India plane crash: Centre to brief media at 1:30 pm, officials inspect wreckage of London-bound flight
The Air India flight AI-171 - Boeing Dreamliner 787-8 aeroplane - bound for London's Gatwick crashed shortly after it took off from the Ahmedabad International Airport on Thursday, June 12. The plane crashed into a resident doctors' hostel building. The airline said only one out of the 242 people on board the aircraft survived the crash.
1. Union Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu will chair a high-level meeting on air safety on Saturday. The meeting was scheduled to take place at 10:30 am in the ministry office. The meeting was to be attended by the Civil Aviation Secretary, the Director General of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Airports Authority of India (AAI) officials, and other senior ministry officials.
2. Ram Mohan Naidu may also address the media at 1.30 pm on Saturday, two days after the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad claimed over 240 lives.
3. Several reports cited police sources as saying that deaths in the Air India plane crash has increased to over 260 from 241 earlier. Sources told NDTV that at least 274 people were killed.
Meanwhile, news agency AFP cited Deputy Commissioner of Police Kanan Desai as saying that 265 bodies had been counted so far, which suggested that at least 24 people were killed on the ground. An official conformation on these reports are awaited.
Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight bound for London's Gatwick airport, as well as 12 crew members.
4. Samples from over 250 people have already been collected in the massive identification effort. The victims' identification relies entirely on DNA results, as the bodies were charred beyond recognition, news agency ANI reported.
5. Air India parent Tata Group will pay ₹ 1 crore to the families of persons killed in the Ahmedabad plane crash, besides covering the medical expenses of those injured, the carrier's MD and CEO Campbell Wilson said on Friday.
In a message shared on the official handle of Air India on X, Campbell announced that the Tata Group, "our parent company, has announced that they will provide ₹ 1 crore or approximately 85,000 British pounds, to the families of each person who lost their life and will cover the medical expenses of those injured".
6. Earlier, the government constituted a high-level multi-disciplinary committee for examining the causes leading to the crash of Air India Flight AI-171 from Ahmedabad to Gatwick Airport (London) on June 12.
An order stated that the committee will be headed by the Home Secretary and will include representatives from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Indian Air Force and Aviation experts.
"The Committee will examine the existing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and guidelines issued to prevent and handle such occurrences and suggest comprehensive guidelines for dealing with such instances in the future," an order issued by the Civil Aviation Ministry read.
7. Teams of National Security Guard (NSG), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Air Force, Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Fire rescue forces, Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and Central Industrial Security Forces (CISF) inspected the wreckage of the ill-fated London-bound Air India 171 flight on Saturday.
8. Investigators recovered a black box recorder on June 13 from the crash site of a London-bound passenger jet that ploughed into a residential area of Ahmedabad.
9. Speaking to ANI, Rekha Kshtriya, a woman who has lived in the area for over 13 years, said she was doing her usual chores when she first heard a loud noise. She immediately came outside and rushed to the crash site.
"... Around 1.30 PM, we heard a loud noise. Although we are accustomed to hearing loud noises, this time, it felt like our eardrums would burst. It seemed like an earthquake. Our house, our dining table, everything was shaking violently. The sound seemed like that of a bomb blast. Then we went outside and learned a plane had crashed... We saw broken pieces of the aircraft spread everywhere. The whole sky was filled with black smoke. High flames were rising everywhere," she told ANI.
10. Meanwhile, the Indian Medical Association, Gujarat State Branch wrote to the Chairman of Tata Sons, requesting support for injured and deceased Medical Students at the BJ Medical College, Ahmedabad.
"We humbly request you to consider extending financial assistance & necessary support to the medical students present at the crash site who were injured or lost their lives in this unfortunate event," read the letter.
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