"The initial probe into the crash-landing of Fadnavis' helicopter last month has prima facie found lapses on the part of the pilot as one of the probable causes of the accident," an AAIB official said.
Along with IAF officials, the AAIB will also reach out to experienced private sector executives, meteorologists, and aviation psychologists to be part of the probe.
All the five passengers were safe.
An Air India spokesperson said the plane landed at an "uncommissioned runway" and that all passengers are safe.
A family of five, returning to their hometown at Koducalli in Kozhikode from Dubai, were aboard the fateful Air India Express flight that crash-landed at the Kozhikode airport claiming at least 18 lives on Friday.
An official of the aviation regulator DGCA had said that the pilots aborted the take off after they were informed about a 'barrier' on the runway
The 30-member team will be headed by Malappuram Additional Superintendent of Police G Sabu, a government release said.
The mortal remains of co-pilot Akhilesh Kumar were cremated on Sunday "with attendance from all family members as well as with the officials of Air India and Air India Express present to mark respect to the departed soul at Mathura, his hometown".
Over 30 passengers have suffered ear and nose-bleed after the crew on Jet Airways flight 9W 697 reportedly forgot to select a switch that helps maintain cabin air pressure
The footage, however, does not give a clear picture of whether the aircraft burst into flames mid-air or whether it blew up on impact of the crash, an official said.
The report, released a little over a year after the deadly crash of the Air India Express plane, said the "probable cause of the accident was the non adherence to SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) by the PF (Pilot Flying)".
"All efforts are being made to help passengers. A formal enquiry will be conducted by Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau," the minister said on Twitter.
Wing Commander Raveendran and flight steward Sargeant Iyer, though shaken and injured, managed to open the rear door of the aircraft and shouted for Prime Minister Morarji Desai and the passengers in the forward cabin to exit in haste since they suspected that fire would engulf the aircraft.
Investigators found that the aircraft, a Boeing 777-300ER, was flying at its cruise altitude of 37,000 ft south of Myanmar and near an area of developing storms in the afternoon when turbulence started to cause fluctuations between +0.44g and +1.57g for 19 seconds.
'It is indeed a fact that several issues were routinely red-flagged by DGCA, and were addressed by the (Kozhikode) airport operator. These pertain to excessive rubber deposits, water stagnation, cracks and other routine issues,' Puri tweeted a day after the plane crash in Kozhikode that claimed at least 18 lives.
Both the pilots of the flight have been grounded, pending enquiry, the airline said, adding the incident took place around 1630 hrs.
Fadnavis had gone to Latur in Marathwada region when the mishap occurred.
A 61-year-old cardiac patient Virender Rai, who was being flown to Delhi, has been rushed to the Medanta hospital in Gurgaon immediately after the incident.
A helicopter carrying pilgrims from Guptkashi to Kedarnath crashed on Tuesday amid poor visibility and seven people on board are feared dead.
French aviation watchdog BEA said vertical separation between the two aircraft 'was zero feet' while the least horizontal separation between the two planes was reduced to just 0.6 NM.
The flying licence of the two pilots was suspended and a probe launched into the accident.
The DGCA pointed to cracks on the runway, water stagnation and excessive rubber deposits among other lapses in its show-cause notice. The DGCA conducted the inspection after an Air India Express flight coming from Dammam in Saudi Arabia had a 'tail strike' while landing at the Calicut (Kozhikode) airport on July 2 last year, an official said.
Six pilgrims and a woman pilot were killed when a chopper crashed in Katra, the base camp of the Vaishnodevi shrine in Jammu and Kashmir's Reasi district.
There is no reason for keeping an entire ministry with a total staff strength of 2,300, just for the oversight of a few aviation sector laws and regulatory bodies, notes A K Bhattacharya.
The accident occurred at 7:45 pm while the pilot was attempting to land the B737 Air India Express from Dubai at the tabletop runway of the Karipur International Airport.
With full-service carrier Jet Airways and budget airline SpiceJet operating 737 MAX planes, the DGCA has decided to seek information about the aircraft from Boeing as well as the two domestic carriers in view of the air crash in Ethiopia.
Runway 34 is a clumsy cocktail of Hollywood movies spiked with the Bollywood brand of God complex, sighs Sukanya Verma.
'Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) of the ill-fated aircraft have been retrieved. AAIB (Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau) is conducting investigations,' Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted, as fresh questions were raised on the safety parameters of the runway.
The King Air C90 12-seater aircraft had taken off from the Juhu airstrip on a test flight.
Serving pilots question the Kozhikode plane crash report findings.
'The DGCA, the ministry of civil aviation, Air India, the Airports Authority, all of them together form what I call an organised syndicate' 'In India, it is a fashion to blame the pilot because then nobody asks questions about the incompetence and grave negligence of this State-run syndicate.'
Wreckage washed up on a remote Indian Ocean island is "very likely from a Boeing 777", Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Thursday as speculation mounted it could be from MH370 that vanished mysteriously over a year ago with 239 people, including five Indians, on board.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 that mysteriously disappeared with 239 people on board nearly a year ago was deliberately taken off course by someone in the cockpit and flown towards Antarctica, experts have claimed.
The search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has come to an end with passengers' families being informed that the effort to find the plane has been suspended.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh was present at the funeral of the BSF personnel who died in the air crash on Tuesday.
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