'They will cover up the failures of all the others.'
The shocking and gruesome crash of the Air India Dreamliner flight to London from Ahmedabad resulted in the death of more than 270 lives.
"You are playing with the lives of people for politics," Captain A Mohan Ranganathan, a former airline instructor pilot and aviation safety advisor, tells Rediff's Shobha Warrier.
Generally, after every crash, the investigation concludes it as human error and puts the blame on the pilots who in most cases might not have survived the crash....
That's what happens in India. Here, you will see that in all investigations, they will blame the pilot and they will cover up failures of all the others.
In this case, the high grass close to the runway will not get any mention in the final report.
They won't mention the birds.
Then there were high-rise buildings so close to the airport.
Can you have such high buildings so close to the airport?
No, you cannot. I wrote about this blatant violation of the ICAO Annex 14 Vol.1 Standard on Obstacle Limiting surfaces on the day of the crash itself with an image. No structure that would penetrate a plane should have been allowed so close to the airport.
Except for Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kochi airports, all the other airports in India allow high structures close to the airport.
A lawyer from Kerala, Yeshwanth Shenoy, has been fighting this malignant tumour after the Mangalore crash. She eventually got court orders from the Bombay high court to demolish more than 100 structures violating obstruction level. But it was not done because of the politician-real estate nexus.
The Airport Authority gives no-objection certificates. The DGCA, which is supposed to do an audit regularly for licensing, has been turning a blind eye.
That's why we are having buildings where they should not have been.
If such an incident were to happen in a big city like Mumbai, the death toll would be very high.
You are playing with the lives of people for politics.
I hope, at least now people wake up and take action by demolishing all the illegal structures.
After the Air India crash, you wrote that the rot started at the top of the aviation ladder...
Who is at the top? That's the minister!
The problem is, the judiciary does not understand what aviation safety is.
In 2000, even before the new runway was built in Mangalore, an activist had filed a case in the Karnataka high court. This was before the Mangalore crash.
He had mentioned that the lay of the land was such that if an aircraft overshot, it would fall 300 feet down the ravine and any rescue would not be possible.
But the Karnataka high court dismissed his petition. So, he went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court also upheld the high court order but with a rider that 'the government shall comply with all the rules and regulations.'
When the Mangalore crash took place, Shenoy filed a PIL in the Supreme Court as there were so many violations.
The Bench threw out the PIL and handed over the entire file to the ministry of civil aviation to assess whether there was a worthwhile case in the PIL!
That's the level of understanding of what aviation safety is by the judiciary.
Unless you have a strong judiciary, you cannot improve the system here. The judiciary should hold people accountable.
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Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff
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