'A few answers for the reason of the crash will be known -- whether it was a technical fault, design issue, human error etc.'
In one of the frames of the chilling video, a woman is seen trying to climb down from the balcony with the support of mere railings with huge flames emanating from the crash site just metres away.
A week after the devastating Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad claimed 270 lives, investigators on Thursday continued to sift for clues to ascertain the cause, while the government said the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau will decide where to decode the black box of the ill-fated Dreamliner.
Two other MBBS students and three relatives of doctors are missing, she said.
All the 12 cabin crew members, including two pilots, on board the ill-fated London-bound Air India flight were killed in the Ahmedabad air crash on Thursday.
'It is an indication that they had forgotten to retract the landing gear. That causes heavy drag, and you cannot accelerate or gain height too fast with a hanging gear.'
While Air India cancelled six international flights due to aviation regulator DGCA subjecting its Dreamliner fleet to enhanced checks, the Ahmedabad-London Gatwick one was cancelled due to unavailability of aircraft, the airline said.
Of 1,400 pilots the airline has, 200 have quit in the past few months because of salary delays.
Seeking to assuage pilot shortage concerns, Akasa Air's chief executive Vinay Dube on Friday said the carrier has sufficient pilots and flyers should not expect any flight cancellations. "We have plenty of pilots. We have given numbers like 700 in the past. "I don't think this is something from an Akasa perspective people need to worry about because we have got this plan in place where we have pilots not just for our current set of aircraft but we have got pilots for the foreseeable future in terms of growth," Dube told PTI at the sidelines of a CII event.
'On this happy occasion, I wish Sonam more work and another National Award.'
Modi said space exploration is about pushing the limits of human potential, daring to dream and having the courage to turn those dreams into reality.
Air India will require more than 6,500 pilots to operate 470 aircraft that are to be supplied by Airbus and Boeing in the coming years, according to industry sources. Seeking to expand fleet as well as operations, the airline has placed orders for acquiring a total of 840 aircraft that includes an option to buy 370 planes. This is one of the largest aircraft order by any airline. Currently, Air India has around 1,600 pilots to operate its 113 aircraft fleet and in recent times, there have been instances of ultra-long haul flights getting cancelled or delayed due to shortage of crew.
Sunita added that "I hope, and I think for sure, I'm gonna be going back to my father's home country and visiting with people and getting excited about the first, or not the first, but the Indian national who's going up on the Axiom Mission coming up, pretty awesome," she said.
Tata group-owned Air India plans to hire expat pilots for its Boeing 777 planes as the airline is facing a shortage of pilots amid plans to expand its fleet as well as international operations, according to sources. The carrier is looking to rope in around 100 pilots for the wide-body Boeing 777 fleet and has approached various agencies that provide expat flight crew to airlines, the sources told PTI. The loss-making Air India, which was under government ownership for nearly seven decades till the Tata group took over in January 2022, had stopped hiring expat pilots many years ago to save costs.
Aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has asked Vistara to submit a daily report on flight cancellations and delays as the Tata group airline cancelled more than 50 flights for the second straight day on Tuesday amid non-availability of pilots.
Boeing is also exploring the possibility of manufacturing aircraft components and assembling the jets in India.
Air India will train its pilots in Singapore for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, due for delivery from December. The move is sparking a protest from one of its pilots' unions, on promotion issues.
"Once the astronaut returns to Earth, they are immediately forced to readjust again, back to Earth's gravity, and can experience issues standing, stabilising their gaze, walking and turning. For their safety, returning astronauts are often placed in a chair immediately upon return to Earth," the Houston-based Baylor College of Medicine said in a note on body changes in space.
Indian aviation regulator DGCA has barred 90 SpiceJet pilots from operating the Boeing 737 Max aircraft after finding them not properly trained. "For the moment, we have barred these pilots from flying the Max and they have to retrain successfully for flying the aircraft," DGCA chief Arun Kumar said in a statement. He also said that the regulator will take "strict action against those found responsible for the lapse."
Pilots working with Air India have warned of non-co-operation if restoration of pre-Covid overtime allowance is delayed, and if other practices they say are 'discriminatory' continues. "We cannot assure that our members will undertake flying duties exceeding 70 hours a month. Any coercive action by the management will lead to industrial action to safeguard flight safety and well-being of our members," the Indian Commercial Pilots Association and the Indian Pilots Guild said in a joint letter to Air India's management on Tuesday.
Akasa Air has reduced its service on 10 routes and stopped operating flights on eight others since the exodus of pilots began in early July. The airline's flights per week reduced from 945 in June to 754 in October, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium's data, which has been reviewed by Business Standard. The airline currently operates flights on 34 routes. Between June and October, Akasa Air ceased operations on the following: Ahmedabad-Kochi, Ahmedabad-Hyderabad, Ahmedabad-Pune, Bengaluru-Hyderabad, Bengaluru-Chennai, Kochi-Hyderabad, Goa-Lucknow, and Goa-Hyderabad.
The fledgling Akasa Air has told the Delhi high court it is in a "state of crisis" following the "sudden and abrupt" resignation of over 40 pilots who left the airline without serving the mandatory notice period. The airline and its CEO Vinay Dube approached the high court with their petition on September 14, seeking a direction to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to take coercive action against these pilots for their "irresponsible actions". The high court has fixed the plea for hearing on Friday.
Two pilot unions at Air India have claimed that there is a shortage of pilots to operate the airline's long-haul and ultra-long haul flights. The concerns raised by the Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) and Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) also come against the backdrop of the Tatas-owned airline recently cancelling and rescheduling certain flights to and from the North American region due to crew shortage. In a joint letter written to Air India's chief human resources officer Suresh Dutt Tripathi on December 13, the unions said, "...we cannot maintain the printed planned roster due to a shortage of pilots, as CMS (crew management system) does not have standby pilots."
The trails of mega-mergers, tailwinds of expanding fleets, flights and airports will dot the fast-growing Indian aviation firmament in 2025, though the dark clouds of supply chain woes will persist longer. Also, new airline takeoffs, the future trajectory of revised norms to tackle pilot fatigue and efforts to reduce carbon emissions will be on the radar.
Boeing's confirmation that the Super Hornet has flown off a ski-jump is a statement that it is ready to operate off existing Indian aircraft carriers.
SpaceX launched a reduced two-man crew to the International Space Station on Saturday, carrying supplies and two empty seats for Starliner astronauts awaiting a return home in February after an unplanned eight-and-a-half-month stay in orbit, CBS News reported.
The aircraft, which has been grounded since March following two fatal crashes which killed 346 on board, is crucial to Indian low-cost airline SpiceJet's fortune, which has up to 205 aircraft on order. With the grounding, the airline's capacity expansion plan is suffering.
At 8.04 am IST on Monday, May 7, 2024, Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore will fly to space as the first crewed mission of Boeing's Starliner.
'Indian aviation is having a lesser number of aircraft.' 'Besides the Boeing 737 MAX, you have the A320Neos which Indigo is currently grappling with because of a lack of pilots.' 'This has led to cancellation (of flights) and therefore the prices of air tickets are on the higher side this season although generally in March ticket prices are on the lower side.'
The plane was scheduled to be delivered by aircraft manufacturer Boeing to Air India in July but its delivery was delayed twice --once in July for a few weeks due to COVID-19 pandemic and then in August for a few weeks due to technical reasons -- the officials noted.
More than five years ago on an April evening, cash-starved Jet Airways announced temporary grounding of operations after flying as a full service airline for 25 years. Since then, more than 20,000 jobs and money worth thousands of crores owed to lenders, vendors and passengers evaporated while awaiting an insolvency resolution. And today, the Supreme Court ordered the airline's liquidation, marking the formal completion of a turbulent journey into the sunset and shattering lean revival hopes.
The CH-47F version of the Chinook that India is buying from the United States is a high-tech marvel.
Facing disruptions due to non-availability of crew, Vistara on Sunday announced reducing 10 per cent of its capacity or 25-30 flights daily and most of the cancellations are in the domestic network as the Tata Group airline strives to stabilise operations. The full-service carrier is to operate over 300 flights daily in the ongoing summer schedule and witnessed significant disruptions earlier this week as many pilots reported sick, resulting in cancellations of flights. "We are carefully scaling back our operations by around 25-30 flights per day, i.e. roughly 10 per cent of the capacity we were operating.
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.
An all-women pilot team of Air India will fly over North Pole on the world's longest air route and the flight from San Fransico (SFO) will reach Bengaluru on January 9 covering a distance of about 16,000 kilometres.
The Indian Navy has decided that the twin-seat Rafale will not be disqualified on the basis of its inability to operate from an aircraft carrier.
If you aren't living under a rock, it would be hard to miss reading or hearing about the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft being grounded by over 50 nations. For those who are in the dark or still confused about the entire episode, here's a simple FAQ on the issue and what's happening around the world.
The oldest patient at the hospital is 83, while the youngest is a two-year-old child who suffered a concussion.
SpiceJet is the only Boeing 737 MAX operator in India, with 13 aircraft of the type in its fleet and a total of 205 planes on order.
The mission has been delayed for several years because of setbacks in the spacecraft's development.
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