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Pilots jump to Capt Sohanpal's defence

Josy Joseph in New Delhi

Senior pilots have questioned the wisdom of the civil aviation ministry in blaming the pilot of Alliance Air's CD-7412, which crashed while descending in Patna.

Several serving pilots told rediff.com that it was "unfair and rather cruel" to blame Captain Sohanpal for descending at a height below the normal "without knowing the real reasons". Civil Aviation Secretary A H Jung had claimed this morning that the ministry suspected pilot error to be the reason behind the crash.

Captain V K Bhalla, a senior Indian Airlines pilot and former president of the Indian Commercial Pilots Association, said it is "very unfair for anybody to jump into conclusions unless the inquiry is completed."

"The secretary is not a technocrat. Without any inquiry he has given his judgement that the accident was due to pilot error. Nothing can actually be said about the crash unless an inquiry is complete," Bhalla told rediff.com. Bhalla has logged several thousand hours and is still serving with Indian Airlines.

The twin-engine Boeing 737s with the Alliance Air are all about two decades old, he pointed out. "This particular plane that crashed is about 20 years old. Ideally an airline should have a young fleet," he said.

Alliance Air has no "previous record of any accidents, if at all it would have only been very minor incidents."

Wing Commander (retd) Praful Bakshi, a former pilot, said the old version of Boeing 737s, which is being used in India, have reported several problems in America. "They have had various problems and hence grounded many of them. The main problem has been in the electrical connection in the fuel supply, where short circuit has led to fire in the West in the past," he said.

"This accident is probably not due to pilot error. Pilot error usually happens when there is a visibility problem, but here the visibility was high. One need not blame the pilot for the accident at this stage," he said.

"The secretary does not know what he is talking," Bakshi declared.

"If Indians are not reporting any trouble then it means they were either not using the aircraft properly or they are hiding these troubles," he said.

Bakshi also claimed that whenever he has been in a Being 737's cockpit, he has found an "uncomfortable level of vibration of the airframe."

Captain Sohanpal, his colleagues pointed out, had already logged 4326 hours and has been accident-free.

"How could the government jump to such conclusions without any proper evidence or investigation," asked one of his colleagues.

The full coverage of the Alliance Air crash

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