An Air India flight took off from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport for Vienna on June 14. However, soon after takeoff, it lost altitude – the plane dropped 900 feet mid-air. Both pilots have now been off-rostered pending the outcome of the investigation, the airline said. The incident happened two days after an Air India flight crashed in Ahmedabad minutes after takeoff, killing all but one person on board.
The action was taken after the matter was disclosed to the aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in “accordance with regulations”, Air India said in a statement.
“Upon receipt of the pilot’s report, the matter was disclosed to DGCA in accordance with regulations. Subsequently, upon receipt of data from the aircraft’s recorders, further investigation was initiated. The pilots have been off-rostered pending the outcome of the investigation,” an Air India spokesperson.
The Boeing 777 landed safely in Vienna after a flight of 9 hours and 8 minutes.
Meanwhile, a parliamentary panel led by JDU MP Sanjay Jha is all set to review recent air crashes and also manpower gaps in the aviation sector. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, chaired by Mr Jha, will meet on June 23 to take up aviation safety as a top priority, in the wake of the Ahmedabad Air India crash and the recent helicopter accident in Uttarakhand, sources told NDTV.
Ahmedabad Plane Crash
The London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed moments after takeoff from India’s Ahmedabad city on June 12, killing 241 of the 242 people on board and several people on the ground.
The black boxes of the plane – the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) – were recovered in the days that followed, one from the rooftop of a building at the crash site on June 13, and the other from the debris on June 16.
A preliminary probe report on the Air India crash is expected to be released by July 11. The report will be crucial as it may provide the possible causes of the fatal crash.
