Panel set up to fix 'root cause' of crash
New Delhi/Ahmedabad: The Centre on Saturday set up a high-level multi-disciplinary panel to ascertain the "root cause" of the crash of the London-bound Air India plane in Ahmedabad and assess any contributing factors, including mechanical failure, human error and regulatory compliances even as the death toll in the disaster rose to 270. As the panel headed by Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan was mandated to give its report in three months, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said aviation regulator DGCA has ordered "extended surveillance" for the Tata-owned airline's Boeing 787 Dreamliner series planes. The Civil Aviation Ministry said the committee will not be a substitute to other probes being conducted by relevant organisations. In a post on X, Air India said it has done one-time safety checks on nine of its Boeing 787 Dreamliners and is on track to complete the checks on the remaining 24 such planes as directed by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
The carrier now has 26 Boeing 787-8s and seven Boeing 787-9s in its fleet. All but one of the 242 passengers and crew on board the Boeing 787-8(AI171) and another 29 persons including five MBBS students on the ground were killed when the aircraft came down on Thursday moments after taking off from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport before plummeting inside the nearby campus of the state-run BJ Medical College in Meghaninagar area and going up in flames. As investigators pore over wreckage at the BJ Medical College hostel and canteen complex for clues after the crash, Air India officials said the ill-fated airplane underwent comprehensive maintenance checks in June 2023 and was due for the next scheduled comprehensive checks in December this year.
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Mint
21 minutes ago
- Mint
In Air India crash, canteen worker hopes for second miracle
By Sudipto Ganguly and Sumit Khanna AHMEDABAD, India, June 15 (Reuters) - Around 30 minutes before an Air India jet crashed into a college hostel in India, Ravi Thakor, the cook in the hostel canteen, and his wife stepped out to deliver lunchboxes - leaving behind their two-year-old daughter and his mother. The grandmother and child are missing. Thakor is hoping for what he calls a "second miracle", one like the astonishing survival of the sole passenger among the 242 people on board the plane. Thakor said he first thought the loud bang he heard when the plane crashed on Thursday in the western city of Ahmedabad was a gas cylinder blast, but soon noticed the building he had just left was engulfed in flames. For days, he's been searching for his mother and his daughter at hospitals and the morgue to no avail. Police told Reuters they were treating it as a missing persons case. "If one of the plane passengers could survive the crash, there could be a second miracle and my mother and daughter could also be safe," a visibly distraught Thakor told Reuters outside one of the hospitals. His wife Lalita stood beside him, stone-faced. "We realise that the chances of finding them alive are bleak but we have not given up hope," Thakor said. In all, at least 271 people died in the crash - the 241 passengers and crew in the plane, and the rest people on the ground, mostly in the hostel building. Thakor and his wife have given samples of their DNA to hospital authorities but they are yet to hear if any matches have been found among the deceased. Families of victims have been waiting to take posession of their loved ones' remains for days as DNA profiling and other identification checks are taking time. The hospital's additional superintendent, Rajnish Patel, said on Sunday DNA samples of only 32 deceased have been matched so far. When the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner jet struck the hostel canteen on Thursday, many students were eating lunch. Steel tumblers and plates still containing food lay on the few tables that were left intact when Reuters visited the site later. Thakor's mother was still cooking when he and his wife left the hostel that day to deliver lunchboxes and he had just rocked rocked his daugher to sleep on a wooden swing, he said. "It is possible someone took away my daughter in the chaos that followed," he said.
News18
22 minutes ago
- News18
Medical Hostel Cook Hopes For 'Second Miracle' After Daughter, Mother Go Missing In Crash
Last Updated: Three days after the accident, only 32 of the deceased could have been positively identified through DNA testing, according to hospital officials. Almost half an hour before the devastating plane crash tore through a college hostel in Ahmedabad, Ravi Thakor and his wife stepped out to deliver lunchboxes, leaving their two-year-old daughter and elderly mother at the canteen where they worked. As Thakor desperately searches for his two loved ones, he hopes for a second miracle, like the survival of the sole passenger among the 242 people on board the plane. 'If one of the plane passengers could survive the crash, there could be a second miracle, and my mother and daughter could also be safe," a visibly distraught Thakor told Reuters outside one of the hospitals. His wife, Lalita, stood beside him, stone-faced. In that moment of chaos, Thakor wondered if someone might have rescued his daughter. Despite the heartbreak, Thakor hasn't given up. 'We realise that the chances of finding them alive are bleak, but we have not given up hope," Thakor said. Thakor at first thought the loud bang he heard was a gas cylinder blast before he noticed the building he had just left was engulfed in flames. It has been four days as he continues to look for his mother and daughter at hospitals and the morgue. Police told Reuters they are treating it as a missing persons case. The couple has provided DNA samples to aid the identification process, but they have yet to receive any results. So far, only 32 of the deceased have been positively identified through DNA testing, according to hospital officials. The death toll in the crash climbed to 271-the 241 passengers and crew on the plane and the remaining people on the ground, mostly in the hostel building. The crash has left several families heartbroken and shattered. Some were also lucky to escape death. Among them was Vaishali Lalwani, a postgraduate medical student from Godhra studying at B J Medical College (BJMC). Vaishali had skipped lunch on Thursday, and this minor change saved her from the unfortunate incident. Recalling the anxious moments, her father, Suresh Lalwani, told reporters, 'When we heard about the crash and learned it happened near her usual lunch spot, panic set in. We tried reaching her, and the moment she answered the phone, we were overwhelmed with relief." When the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner jet struck the hostel canteen on Thursday, many students were eating lunch. Steel tumblers and plates still containing food lay on the few tables that were left intact, according to Reuters.
Hans India
an hour ago
- Hans India
Civil Aviation Ministry issues strict instructions to DGCA to enforce chopper safety
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