Air India technician’s death: Aircraft was started without signal

Mumbai: According to sources from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau — which is probing the recent mishap where an engineer was sucked into the engine of an Air India aircraft — as many as four eyewitnesses have given their statements to the police, which have been submitted to the bureau. Meanwhile, the police have asked for cockpit recordings. As per the statements, the aircraft started without receiving any signal from engineer Ravi Subramaniam.

Subramaniam was standing on the right side of the aircraft, and was supposed to give a signal to the aircraft. While Subramaniam was walking around the right side area of the aircraft, the pilot started the engine, which is why he got sucked into the engine. According to the statements, typically, the engineer, after going a safe distance, gives the thumbs up signal to the aircraft, however on that fateful day the pilot of the aircraft did not wait for the signal.

Sources said that a pilot cannot start the engine until the engineer walks away from the aircraft, however on the day of the mishap there was possibly some miscommunication between the pilot and Subramaniam. Also, the possibility of a technical fault in the engine cannot be denied, according to the statements.

The bureau has taken all documents about the accident to Delhi headquarters. Sources said a maintenance engineer has written to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), saying that there was a huge communication gap between the engineer and the pilot of the aircraft. Another source said that the pilots of this aircraft came from Rajkot to Mumbai just in time for its scheduled departure for Hyderabad and hence, were pressed for time.

Meanwhile, the Watchdog Foundation has approached Sahar police station and asked the officials there to book a case against both pilots of AI619. Sources said that the foundation has questioned why the pilots were in such a hurry or lacking in concentration.

A few others have raised questions as to whether the pilots were under the influence of drugs at the time of the incident. Nicolas Almeida the of Watchdog Foundation has demanded an inquiry into the incident and told officials to book an FIR against the pilots and de-roster them from the airline. Mr Almeida has asked for a compensation of Rs 50 lakh for the family of the deceased Subramaniam.