AI-171 to become AI-159 to avoid ‘bad memories'
Air India has decided to not operate flight number AI 171 and replace it with flight number AI 159, officials familiar with the matter said on Friday, a day after a flight by that number crashed seconds after take off from the Ahmedabad airport killing 241 people on board.
'The flight from Ahmedabad to Gatwick [London] will be re-numbered to AI 159. The return flight too will be changed to AI160,' an official said requesting anonymity.
'The change will start to reflect soon,' the official said.
Air India officials were unavailable for comment.
On Thursday afternoon, the London bound flight crashed second after taking off with 242 people, including 12 crew members, on board. While the government is yet to release official figures of casualties, Union home minister Amit Shah, who visited the site of the crash, confirmed that only one of the 242 people on board survived. More people were killed when the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner rammed into a hostel of a medical college.
'The idea behind changing the number of a flight is to avoid triggering trauma or bad memories,' a former airline official said. 'It is also a way to disassociate the route from the tragedy in the minds of passengers and travellers,' this person said.
The last time any airline re-numbered its flight was in 2014 when a Malaysian Airlines plane on the Kuala Lumpur-Beijing route operating as MH370 was renumbered to MH318. The Malaysia Airlines flight 370 was an international passenger flight operated that disappeared from radar on March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to its planned destination, Beijing Capital International Airport in China.
Lion Air too re-numbered its flight from JT610 to JT618 after the flight, carrying 181 passengers and eight crew members, crashed into the Java Sea on October 29, 2018, 13 minutes after take-off, killing all 189 occupants on board.
Experts, meanwhile, continued to piece together the reason for Thursday's crash.
The Boeing 787 is one of the safest fleets to operate, former pilots said. 'Such accidents are extremely rare to take place. It is difficult to understand the cause of the accident by looking at the visuals out in public domain,' a former pilot said requesting anonymity.
The aircraft, on Thursday carried almost a full load of 125,000 litres of fuel. It entered a slow descent shortly after taking off at 1.38pm, with its landing gear still extended before exploding upon impact. The twin-engine plane had reached an altitude of 625 feet (190.5 meters) at a speed of 174 knots, according to data from Flightradar24.
'An IndiGo flight that was lined up, aborted take-off after its pilot suspected issues with the Air India take off,' an official on condition of anonymity said.
'The pilot reportedly heard some unusual noise while taking off before noticing the fire,' an official of the Ahmedabad airport said requesting anonymity.
An Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) official, requesting anonymity, said, 'Yesterday was all about rescue efforts. We have begun collecting material evidence today.' He, however, did not confirm if the black box was recovered.
Investigating officials requested to avoid any panic and allow the investigation to reveal the facts. 'There are many theories being made, however, clarity on the sequence of events and initial cause of the crash will be revealed only after the evidence is analysed,' he concluded.
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