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Gaurav Taneja, aka Flying Beast, spotted blood stain on wing before take-off, was told to ignore it: ‘What if flaps failed mid-air?'
The Air India Flight 171 crash shocked the nation, claiming 270 lives. Now, former commercial pilot Gaurav Taneja, famously known as the Flying Beast on YouTube, shared that human error is often caused by a variety of factors that expose the systemic issues in the Indian aviation industry. While he was among the first to suggest that the crash was caused by a rare dual engine failure, in a later video, he suggested that human error might have been a factor as well. He said that several things must've gone wrong on the fateful day for a crash of such magnitude to occur.
On Prakhar ke Pravachan podcast, Gaurav revealed how airline management often ignores issues raised by pilots to avoid delays, only to blame them if something goes wrong. Recounting his own experience as a commercial pilot, Gaurav shared, 'It happened with me once. I was walking around and I saw some blood stains on the wing. I thought it must be some bird. Must have come in the way while landing. In such cases, the aircraft needs to be thoroughly checked but the ground staff there told me, 'Sir, I will clean it up, you take it away.' I was like, 'What does that mean?''
Gaurav shared the risks of avoiding such incidents. 'Now imagine if the bird has entered the engine. What if I am unable to operate it when I am in the air. The flaps could be affected. The ground staff said, 'Sir, you write about this in the next sector, abhi delay ho raha hai (It is getting late).' After a point, I stopped doing all this.'
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Gaurav added that pilots think they are helping the management by making adjustments and adhering to such requests, but in reality, they are risking the lives of people flying with them. 'You are there to work, your work is to do safe take offs and landings, if you think you are helping the management, you are actually not. It always backfires because if anything goes wrong, they always blame the pilot,' he said.
In the same podcast, Gaurav, who was fired from Air Asia for pointing out alleged malpractices at the airline, shared that the ground staff is often under pressure to maintain punctuality. Under pressure, they ignore issues with the aircraft, requesting pilots to raise their concerns later.
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'A common practice in aviation is for engineers to request pilots not to log complaints. If the complaint is logged, an entire procedure has to be performed. This causes delays. They will tell you that they will okay the aircraft to fly, and ask you to raise the concern at Delhi. They tell you to report 'in-air failures', or that some issue happened after take-off. But everyone knows the truth. This is an endless back-and-forth between pilots and engineers. Companies need to change their ways. They shouldn't take such big risks over one or two minutes,' he said.
