After a London-bound Air India aircraft crashed shortly after taking off from the Ahmedabad airport on Thursday, the spotlight is back on India's history with aviation disasters.
'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.'
'They will cover up the failures of all the others.'
'In multi-pilot operations, no critical switch can be moved without the other pilot's consent.'
Two runways at the airport will remain closed as officials investigate the incident, according to the airport's CEO Deborah Flint, CNN reported.
Aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation has revised its operational guidelines for operators during adverse weather conditions, emphasising that safety should take precedence over 'schedule adherence' and encouraged pilots to divert flights in unpredictable conditions.
The truth about what triggered the fatal crash of the Dreamliner should not only help bring the guilty to book, but also outline the future course of action in aviation safety, notes Nivedita Mookerji.
'The crash site must be secured because something small -- like a pipe or hydraulic line -- could hold a critical clue.'
The scheduled temporary runway closure is an annual exercise and a contingency plan on the same will help maintain operational continuity and ensure passengers' safety, the private airport operator said in a statement.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) suspended the licences of 92 pilots in 2022 for violating safety norms, which was more than double the 2021 figure. The number of scheduled flights (domestic and international) in India increased by 32.74 per cent to 1.3 million in 2022, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium. A DGCA official stated that the minimum period of licence suspension in 2022 was one month and the maximum was three years.
Lightning claims more lives in India annually than any other extreme weather event. Between April and July this year alone, 1,621 people died due to lightning strikes.
'Every delay directly increases the cost burden on developers. Land holding charges, financing costs, and compliance expenses escalate as approvals drag on.'
'Who tried engine relight?' 'If the first officer was the one flying at takeoff, the captain may have taken control immediately post-thrust loss.' 'But the AAIB report doesn't clarify any of this.'
Earlier in the day, an IndiGo A320 passenger aircraft landed successfully at 1.32 pm at runway 08/26 of the under-construction Navi Mumbai International Airport, paving the way for the Navi Mumbai International Airport Ltd (NMIAL) to seek an aerodrome licence from the aviation safety regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to start commercial flight services.
'A last-second aborted landing at Mumbai airport left us speechless.'
None of the 55 passengers or five crew members was injured, they said, adding the DGCA has started an investigation.
'In 50 seconds, the pilots were fighting drag, trying relight, throttling up and avoiding obstacles.' 'They had neither height nor speed. There was no margin.'
'If you align your ambition with India's rise, the peak of your careers will unfold alongside the peak of India's power.'
'The switch can't be shut off by an accidental brush of the hand, but needs effort, conscious physical action to operate it.' 'Was it the software of the aeroplane that caused the switch to turn off?' 'Was it the hardware of the aeroplane?' 'Was it both software and hardware put together?'
The 270-km Jammu-Srinagar highway reopened on Sunday after a day-long closure due to heavy snowfall, allowing stranded vehicles to proceed to their destinations. However, several other important inter-district routes, including the Mughal Road, Sinthan Pass, Sonamarg-Kargil inter-UT road, and Bhaderwah-Chamba inter-state road, remained closed for vehicular traffic due to heavy snowfall.
The airport, being developed by the Adani Group, is expected to start commercial operations early next year.
In a statement, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said the airport and emergency teams responded swiftly and effectively after a full emergency was declared at 18.05 hours.
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.
The on-time performance (OTP) of Indian carriers took a major dip in January as dense fog foiled their flight schedules. According to data from the Ministry of Civil Aviation reviewed by Business Standard, five out of six major Indian carriers - IndiGo, Air India, AIX Connect, Akasa Air, and Vistara - recorded their lowest OTPs in at least the last 11 months. In response to queries, an Air India spokesperson said that during this winter, northern India experienced unusually prolonged periods of dense fog affecting traffic at the airline's two largest hubs -- Delhi and Mumbai.
Both the pilots of the flight have been grounded, pending enquiry, the airline said, adding the incident took place around 1630 hrs.
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.
Being touted as a competitor to the country's busiest Delhi airport -- which handles approximately 1,200 flights a day -- the Noida airport was expected to start flight operations by the end of this year. But supply-chain disruption, caused by pandemic and subsequent global upheaval, has hit the pace of construction at the airport which is coming up in the Jewar area of UP's Gautam Budh Nagar, some 75-km from the Delhi airport.
A Nepalese private plane crashed and caught fire shortly after taking off from the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu on Wednesday, killing 18 people aboard, including a child, and seriously injuring the pilot -- the only survivor.
After the accident on Friday, Virudhunagar MP Manickam Tagore, Ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor alleged on Twitter that there were safety lapses on the part of the civil aviation ministry.
Scindia claimed Tharoor is "lost in his esoteric world of thesaurus", and for him "data mining of selective press articles from the internet qualifies as "research".
A K Chopra, a retired DGCA official, had flagged concerns regarding engineering, flight safety, operations, and training standards in the airline and subsidiaries, thus warning the management of grave safety risk. He also called for the replacement of the chief of flight safety Harpreet A De Singh, who, he said, did not meet the regulatory requirements for holding the post.
With low-visibility conditions significantly disrupting flight operations at the Delhi airport, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Monday said all stakeholders are working round-the-clock to minimise fog-related impact as well as passenger inconvenience, and asserted that unruly passenger behaviour is unacceptable.
'Whoever is doing it (threats to airlines), they are actually carrying out a recce.' 'This is the manner in which terrorists strike.'
TV personality Kim Kardashian stole the limelight at Versace's pre-fall collection for its first show in New York.
President Droupadi Murmu conferred 26 Shaurya Chakras (seven posthumous) to personnel of the armed forces, Central Armed Police Forces and state/Union Territory Police during a defence investiture ceremony.
A UN team had visited the Patna airport and expressed concerns.
Rains made the job more challenging as it was making the ground soft, the AIESL CEO said.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Monday suspended operations at Redbird Flight Training Academy, one of India's largest flight schools, across all five of its training bases in the country. This action was taken after five accidents involving the institute's planes in the past six months. The DGCA announced it would conduct an audit of the academy's maintenance practices and also proficiency checks of the institute's flight instructors before allowing it to resume operations.
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday said it's a pity that since switching sides, Scindia has adopted the Modi government's "uncaring attitude" to the public.
