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Khaleej Times
a day ago
- General
- Khaleej Times
Air India crash: Plane engine, flaps focus of probe
The investigation into the Air India plane crash that killed more than 240 people is focusing on the engine, flaps and landing gear, a source said on Friday, as the aviation regulator ordered safety checks on the airline's entire Boeing-787 fleet. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with 242 people on board bound for Gatwick Airport south of London began losing height moments after take-off over a residential area of the western city of Ahmedabad and erupted in a huge fireball as it hit buildings below, CCTV footage showed. Only one passenger survived and local media reported that as many as 24 people on the ground were also killed as the plane crashed onto a medical college hostel during the lunch hour. Reuters could not immediately verify the number. It was the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade. On Friday, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters that Air India and the Indian government were looking at several aspects of the crash including issues linked to its engine thrust, flaps, and why the landing gear remained open as the plane took off and then came down within moments. The probe is also looking at whether Air India was at fault, including on maintenance issues, the source said. A possible bird-hit is not among the key areas of focus, the source said, adding that teams of anti-terrorism experts were part of the investigation process. The government is considering whether it should ground the Boeing-787 fleet in the country during the probe, the source said. There was no immediate response to requests for comment on that from Air India, Boeing and the aviation ministry. Air India has more than 30 Dreamliners that include the Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 versions. A source in Air India said there had been no communication so far from the government on the possible grounding. Separately, India's aviation regulator ordered Air India to conduct additional maintenance actions on its Boeing 787-8/9 aircraft equipped with GEnx engines, including "one-time check" of the take-off parameters before the departure of every flight from midnight of June 15. The airline has also been instructed to introduce 'flight control inspection' - checks to ensure control systems are working properly - in transit inspection, and to conduct power assurance checks, meant to verify the engine's ability to produce the required power, within two weeks. One black box found The aviation ministry said that investigators and rescue workers had recovered the digital flight data recorder - one of the two black boxes on the plane - from the rooftop of the building on which the jet crashed. There was no information on the cockpit voice recorder, the other black box, which is also crucial to the crash probe. Indian conglomerate Tata Group took control of the formerly state-owned Air India in 2022, and merged it with Vistara - a joint venture between the group and Singapore Airlines – last year. Investigators from India, the U.K. and the U.S. have arrived to probe the crash and Tata will be fully transparent about the findings, Tata Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran said in an internal memo seen by Reuters. Chandrasekaran said Tata wants to understand what happened, adding, "We don't know right now". Aircraft engine maker GE Aerospace said it supports the action being taken by India's aviation regulator for enhanced safety inspections of Air India's 787 fleet. "Safety is our top priority," a GE Aerospace spokesperson said. "We are committed to providing all technical support necessary to understand the cause of this accident." Earlier on Friday, rescue workers had finished combing the crash site and were searching for missing people and bodies in the buildings as well as for aircraft parts that could help explain why the plane crashed soon after taking off. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was briefed by officials on the progress of rescue operations when he visited the crash site in his home state of Gujarat on Friday. Modi also met some of the injured being treated in hospital. "The scene of devastation is saddening," he said in a post on X. Thursday's crash was the first for the Dreamliner since the wide-body jet began flying commercially in 2011, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. The plane that crashed on Thursday flew for the first time in 2013 and was delivered to Air India in January 2014, Flightradar24 said. The passengers included 169 Indian nationals, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian.
Zawya
a day ago
- General
- Zawya
Air India crash probe focuses on engine, flaps; India orders safety checks on 787 fleet
The investigation into the Air India plane crash that killed more than 240 people is focusing on the engine, flaps and landing gear, a source said on Friday, as the aviation regulator ordered safety checks on the airline's entire Boeing-787 fleet. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with 242 people on board bound for Gatwick Airport south of London began losing height moments after take-off over a residential area of the western city of Ahmedabad and erupted in a huge fireball as it hit buildings below, CCTV footage showed. Only one passenger survived and local media reported that as many as 24 people on the ground were also killed as the plane crashed onto a medical college hostel during the lunch hour. Reuters could not immediately verify the number. It was the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade. On Friday, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters that Air India and the Indian government were looking at several aspects of the crash including issues linked to its engine thrust, flaps, and why the landing gear remained open as the plane took off and then came down within moments. The probe is also looking at whether Air India was at fault, including on maintenance issues, the source said. A possible bird-hit is not among the key areas of focus, the source said, adding that teams of anti-terror experts were part of the investigation process. The government is considering whether it should ground the Boeing-787 fleet in the country during the probe, the source said. There was no immediate response to requests for comment on that from Air India, Boeing and the aviation ministry. Air India has more than 30 Dreamliners that include the Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 versions. A source in Air India said there had been no communication so far from the government on the possible grounding. Separately, India's aviation regulator ordered Air India to conduct additional maintenance actions on its Boeing 787-8/9 aircraft equipped with GEnx engines, including "one-time check" of the take-off parameters before the departure of every flight from midnight of June 15. The airline has also been instructed to introduce 'flight control inspection' - checks to ensure control systems are working properly - in transit inspection, and to conduct power assurance checks, meant to verify the engine's ability to produce the required power, within two weeks. ONE BLACK BOX FOUND The aviation ministry said that investigators and rescue workers had recovered the digital flight data recorder - one of the two black boxes on the plane - from the rooftop of the building on which the jet crashed. There was no information on the cockpit voice recorder, the other black box, which is also crucial to the crash probe. Earlier on Friday, rescue workers had finished combing the crash site and were searching for missing people and bodies in the buildings as well as for aircraft parts that could help explain why the plane crashed soon after taking off. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was briefed by officials on the progress of rescue operations when he visited the crash site in his home state of Gujarat on Friday. Modi also met some of the injured being treated in hospital. "The scene of devastation is saddening," he said in a post on X. Thursday's crash was the first for the Dreamliner since the wide-body jet began flying commercially in 2011, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. The plane that crashed on Thursday flew for the first time in 2013 and was delivered to Air India in January 2014, Flightradar24 said. The passengers included 169 Indian nationals, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian. Indian conglomerate Tata Group took control of the formerly state-owned Air India in 2022, and merged it with Vistara - a joint venture between the group and Singapore Airlines – last year. (Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly, Abhijith Ganapavaram, Sumit Khanna and Mahezabin Saiyed in Ahmedabad, Aditya Kalra and Shivam Patel in New Delhi; additional reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; writing by Tanvi Mehta and YP Rajesh; Editing by Saad Sayeed, Kate Mayberry, Philippa Fletcher)
Reuters
a day ago
- Health
- Reuters
Air India crash: Families wait as dental identification of victims starts
AHMEDABAD, India, June 13 (Reuters) - Dozens of anxious family members sat outside an Indian hospital waiting to collect bodies of loved ones killed in Thursday's Air India plane crash, as doctors worked overnight to gather dental samples from the deceased and run identification checks. In the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade, an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with 242 people on board bound for London took off from Ahmedabad, but descended and crashed within about 30 seconds, erupting into a massive fireball. Outside the B.J. Medical College in Ahmedabad, an elderly woman said four of her relatives including two children were onboard the flight, but declined to speak further to the media until the bodies were handed over. "Can you give us the dead bodies? If not then we will not give interviews. We are so tired now," she said in frustration. Other relatives sat patiently at the hospital where many have in recent hours given blood samples for DNA profiling at a dedicated centre for collection. At the hospital, Jaishankar Pillai, a forensic dentist, told reporters the doctors were in the autopsy room until 4:30 a.m. on Friday collecting dental samples, as "teeth can withstand the heat", and they hoped they could use them for identification. "We have recorded the dental records of 135 charred victims ... it's a very pathetic situation," said Pillai, adding he did not have data for how many bodies had been identified so far. Officials outside the autopsy room told Reuters at least seven bodies had been handed over to their relatives after identification checks. In the case of dental records, a person is not typically identified based on a relative's teeth, but through reference to the victim's prior dental charts, radiographs, mouth guards or other records. Pillai added that even a selfie photograph of the victim could help doctors match the gap between two teeth to run checks. Scenes of distress played out beside the autopsy room. Daksha Patni was mourning the loss of her relative, 14-year-old Akash Patni, and wailing as she waited for his body. The cause of the crash, the first for a Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab Dreamliner wide-body airliner, has not yet been determined and India's aviation minister said a formal investigation had begun. A family member of another victim, 81-year-old Abdur Razzaq Chitthi Wala, told IANS news agency he was not being allowed to verify the body. "I received a video showing his body, it's burnt, but the face is clearly visible. All I'm asking is to let me verify the body," said the relative, who did not share his name during the interview. "They are saying give your blood sample, and you will get a call."
Al Jazeera
2 days ago
- General
- Al Jazeera
How deadly Air India crash shattered dreams, wiped out entire families
Ahmedabad, India — For the Patel family, April was a month of answered prayers. The news arrived in a simple email: their son, Sahil Patel, had won a visa lottery. He was one of 3,000 Indians chosen by a random ballot for a coveted two-year United Kingdom work visa, under the British government's India Young Professionals Scheme. For the 25-year-old from a middle-class family, it was a pathway from a modest home in Sarod village, 150km (93 miles) from Ahmedabad, the biggest city in the western Indian state of Gujarat, to a new life in London. For his family, the visa was the culmination of every prayer, a chance for the social mobility they had worked their whole lives for. But less than two months later, that excitement has turned to grief: Sahil was one of the 241 people on Air India 171 who died when the plane crashed into a medical college's hostel just outside Ahmedabad airport on Thursday, June 12, seconds after taking off. Only one passenger survived India's deadliest aviation disaster in more than three decades. Dozens of people on the ground were killed, including several students at BJ Medical College, when the plane erupted into a ball of fire after crashing into their mess. Several others were injured, many of them still in critical care. Those killed on board include young students on their way to London on scholarships, a family returning home from a wedding in Gujarat, another that was visiting India for Eid, and those like Sahil whose families believed they had won the luck of a lifetime. In the mess hall at Gujarat's oldest medical school, Rakesh Deora was finishing his lunch along with more than 70 other medical students. From a small town in Bhavnagar in southeastern Gujarat, Deora was in the second year of his undergraduate studies – but, friends and family recalled, did not like wearing his white coat. When the plane struck the building, he was killed by the falling debris. In the chaos that followed, many of the bodies – from the plane and on the ground – were charred beyond recognition. Deora's face was still recognisable when his family saw his body. At the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, five hours after the crash, another family rushed in. Irfan, 22, was an Air India cabin crew member, his uniform a symbol of pride for his family. They rushed to the morgue, unaware of what they were about to face. When an official showed Irfan's father his son's body – his face still recognisable – the man's composure shattered. He collapsed against a wall, his voice a raw lament to God. 'I have been religious my whole life,' he cried, his words echoing in the sterile hallway. 'I gave to charity, I taught my son character … Why this punishment upon him? Why my child?' Beside him, Irfan's mother refused to believe that her son was dead. 'No!' she screamed at anyone who came near. 'He promised he would see me when he got back. You're lying. It's not him.' For another family, recognition came not from a face, but from a small, gold pendant. It was a gift from a husband to his wife, Syed Nafisa Bano, and it was the only way to identify her. Nafisa was one of four members of the Syed family on board, including her husband Syed Inayat Ali, and their two young children, Taskin Ali and Waqee Ali. They had been buzzing with excitement, talking about their return to London after spending a wonderful two months in India celebrating Eid al-Adha with their relatives. On Thursday, their family in Gujarat huddled together in the hospital corridor in mourning, the laughter they had shared consigned to memories. Just 500 metres from the main crash site, rickshaw driver Rajesh Patel was waiting for his next customer. The 50-year-old was the sole earner for his family. He wasn't struck by debris, but by the explosion's brutal heat, which engulfed him in flames. He now lies in a critical care unit, fighting for his life. His wife sits outside the room, her hands clasped in prayer. In the narrow lanes of the Meghaninagar neighbourhood near the crash site, Tara Ben had just finished her morning chores and was lying down for a rest. The sudden, deafening roar that shook her home's tin roof sounded like a gas cylinder explosion, a familiar danger in the densely packed neighbourhood. But the screams from outside that followed told her this was different. 'Arey, aa to aeroplane chhe! Plan tooti gayo! [Oh, it's an aeroplane! It's a plane crash!]' a man shrieked in Gujarati; his voice laced with a terror she had never heard before. Tara Ben ran out into the chaos. The air was thick with smoke and a smell she couldn't place – acrid and metallic. As she joined the crowd rushing to view the crash site, a cold dread washed over her – a mix of gratitude and guilt. It wasn't just for the victims, but for her own community. She looked back at the maze of makeshift homes in her neighbourhood, where hundreds of families lived stacked one upon another. 'If it had fallen here,' she later said, her voice barely a whisper, 'there would be no one left to count the bodies. God saved us, but he took so many others.' Veteran rescue worker Tofiq Mansuri has seen tragedy many times before, but nothing had prepared him for this, he said. For four hours, from mid-afternoon until the sun began to set, he and his team worked in the shadow of the smouldering wreckage to recover the dead with dignity. 'The morale was high at first,' Mansuri recalled, his gaze distant, his face etched with exhaustion. 'You go into a mode. You are there to do a job. You focus on the task.' He described lifting body bag after body bag into the ambulances. But then, they found her. A small child, no more than two or three years old, her tiny body charred by the inferno. In that moment, the professional wall Mansuri had built to allow himself to deal with the dead, crumbled. 'We are trained for this, but how can you train for that?' he asked, his voice breaking for the first time. 'To see a little girl … a baby … it just broke us. The spirits were gone. We were just men, carrying a child who would never go home.' Mansuri knows the sight will stay with him. 'I won't be able to sleep for many nights,' he said, shaking his head. By 7pm, five hours after the crash, ambulances were arriving at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital in a grim procession, not with sirens blaring, but in a near-silent parade of the dead. Inside the hospital, a wave of anguish rippled through the crowd each time the doors of the morgue swung open. In one corner, a woman's voice rose above the din, a sharp, piercing cry of accusation. 'Air India killed him!' she screamed. 'Air India killed my only son!' Then she collapsed into a heap on the cold floor. No one rushed to help; they simply watched, everyone struggling with their own grief. Dozens of families waited – for a name to be called, for a familiar face on a list, for a piece of information that might anchor them amid a disorienting nightmare. They huddled in small, broken circles, strangers united by a singular, unbearable fate. Some were called into small, sterile rooms to give DNA samples to help identify their dead relatives. Then an official's announcement cut through the air: identified remains would only be released after 72 hours, after post-mortem procedures. As the night deepened, some relatives, exhausted and emotionally spent, began their journey home, leaving one or two family members behind to keep vigil. But many refused to leave. They sat on the floor, their backs against the wall, their eyes vacant. While some families still cling to the fragile hope of survival, such as in the case of Rajesh Patel, the rickshaw driver, others are grappling with the grief differently. Away from the hospital's frantic chaos, Sahil Patel's father Salim Ibrahim was away in his village, calm and composed. Over the telephone, his voice did not break but remained chillingly calm, his grief masked by a single practical question. 'Will they give him back to us in a closed box?' he asked. 'I just … I cannot bear for anyone to see him like that. I want him to be brought home with dignity.' The visa that promised a new world to Sahil is now a worthless piece of paper. The plane was a Dreamliner, an aircraft named for the very thing it was meant to carry. The dream of London has dissolved into a nightmare in a morgue. And in the end, all a father can ask for his son is the mercy of a closed lid.
The Independent
2 days ago
- General
- The Independent
What to know about the Air India plane crash that killed more than 240 people
The Air India plane crash this week was one of India's worst aviation disasters, killing 241 people on board and several people on the ground. Indian authorities said Friday the investigation into the crash was underway, which is expected to include experts from the plane's maker Boeing and U.S. aviation regulators. The Air India plane crashed minutes after takeoff Thursday afternoon in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad. Surreal images captured both the plane's last moments and the horror of the crash site, with rescuers picking through smoking debris as they searched for survivors. Here's what is known about the crash: One person on the plane survived The lone survivor was a passenger, Vishwashkumar Ramesh, a British national of Indian origin. Ramesh was thrown from the aircraft and walked to an ambulance, according to Dr. Dhaval Gameti, who treated Ramesh. The doctor told The Associated Press that Ramesh was disoriented, with multiple injuries, but that he seemed to be out of danger. Another medic said Ramesh told him that immediately after the plane took off, it began descending and suddenly split in two, throwing him out before a loud explosion. The airline said there were no other survivors among the 242 passengers and crew on board. Video and photos showed the crash and damage Security camera footage verified by The Associated Press showed the plane taking off and then veering slightly to the side. It then drops into a downward glide, disappears briefly from sight and hits the ground. Moments later, a huge orange and black fireball appears, rising high into the air. At the crash site, the tail cone of the aircraft with damaged stabilizer fins still attached was lodged near the top of a building. The plane's jagged cavity has torn into the facade. A web of cracks spirals outward from the plane's impact. The battered building in Ahmedabad was the dining area for medical students, and they were having lunch when the plane crashed. Indrajeet Singh Solanki, an eyewitness and rescuer, said that at first it was chaotic, smoke everywhere. "We could see some small parts (of the plane) burning. Just like this wing lying over here,' he said. 'Through the smoke, we kept rescuing injured people and rushed them to the trauma center in the civil hospital in auto rickshaws. We rushed nine people to the hospital.' Air India has tried to overcome past troubles The airline had been plagued by tragedy and financial losses under prior state ownership. In 2010, an Air India flight arriving from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, overshot the runway in Mangalore, India, and plunged over a cliff, killing 158 of the 166 people on board. In 2020, a flight for the Air India Express subsidiary skidded off a runway in southern India during heavy rain and cracked in two — killing 18 people and injuring more than 120 others. An Air India Boeing 747 flight crashed into the Arabian Sea in 1978, killing all 213 aboard. The carrier was under government control from 1953 through 2022. It's the first crash of a Boeing 787 The Boeing 787 went into service in 2009. This was the first crash of the model, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. The 787 Dreamliner was the first airliner to make extensive use of lithium ion batteries, which are lighter, recharge faster and can hold more energy than other types of batteries. In 2013 the 787 fleet was temporarily grounded because of overheating of its lithium-ion batteries, which in some cases sparked fires. There was no information yet about possible causes of the crash. Authorities were searching the crash site Friday as part of the investigation, and there was no word whether the plane's black boxes — the flight data and cockpit voice recorders — had been recovered. ___ Klug reported from Tokyo.
