NEW DELHI: Associations of Indian pilots are rejecting claims that last month’s Air India plane crash that killed 260 people was due to human error, after a preliminary investigation sparked speculation implicating the flight crew.
The London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed less than a minute after taking off from Ahmedabad airport in the western Indian state of Gujarat on June 12.
A report released over the weekend by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau said that seconds after take-off, both of the plane’s fuel-control switches moved to the position stopping fuel from the engines.
It did not specify who turned off the switches, only citing the cockpit voice recording, in which “one of the pilots is heard asking the other why he cut off,” while “the other pilot responded that he did not do so.”
The Indian Commercial Pilots Association and the Airline Pilots’ Association of India have issued statements after the release of the initial findings — and the first media and online reactions to it — rejecting speculative narratives and presumptions over the guilt of the pilots.
Capt. Kishore Chinta, an ALPA member and accident investigator, told Arab News that both associations have “raised red flags on the selective release of information” by the AAIB, which has “left the scope of ambiguity for people to jump to conclusions” and for the media to spin narratives.
“We are left defending those pilots who are not there to defend themselves,” he said. “The Western media has been painting them as if they actually committed suicide-murder.”
The London-bound flight was carrying 242 people — 230 passengers, two pilots and 10 crew members. Only one person, sitting in an emergency exit seat, survived the crash. Another 18 people were killed on the ground as the aircraft fell on a B. J. Medical College and hostel for students and resident doctors of the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital.
Investigators at the crash site recovered both components of the black box — the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, days after the crash. The Ministry of Civil Aviation said at the time that the final report was expected within three months.
The early release of preliminary findings has shaken the Indian aviation community, for which it was unacceptable that experienced pilots who have flown thousands of hours would have turned off the fuel supply.
“Definitely a malfunction caused the disaster — poor maintenance or a hardware/software glitch,” said Sandeep Jain, an Indian aviator based in the US.
“Dead pilots are always the easiest target. They don’t bite back. No litigation, no shareholder value erosion.”
The Federation of Indian Pilots is planning to raise the consequences of the preliminary report with the government.
“We will be taking it up with the government no doubt. We will not let it go quietly. The report should not be open-ended,” Capt. C.S. Randhawa, the federation’s president, told Arab News.
“It is inconclusive. So many things are not answered properly. The report does not say that the pilots have moved the fuel control switches, that is why it is inconclusive, and it is leading to speculations.”
