The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) took one full month to prepare its initial report into the AI 171 crash at Ahmedabad on June 12. But, the reports reveals little more than what everyone knew already. Our two aviation experts – Aircraft Engineer Inderjeet Singh who retired couple of months ago from Air India as Deputy General Manager, And former Pilot Captain Surjeet Singh Panesar, who retired from Air India as Flying Instructor and served for three years on Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). Watch the full video here…
Link…
The possibility of a sabotage emanates from the AAIB report itself. It quotes one pilot from Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) – Why have you switched off the fuel switch? The second pilot answers – No, I haven’t. The report doesn’t report any further conversation between the two, raising suspicion. It is not believable.
The report also reports that fuel switches were turned on again within few seconds of being switched off. Who did it? Could it be done without any conversation between the two pilots? Why was further communication not mentioned in the report? If there was no more conversation then the report should have explicitly mentioned that.
THE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS?
Moreover, the report doesn’t rely on data retrieved from Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) or black box. It’s a device which records over 2000 parameters of the aircraft. These include nuanced actions like what angle wing flaps were and at what altitude they were altered. There are two black boxes in Boeing 787 Dreamliners – one near the cockpit and the other one near the tail.
The report actually raises more questions than answers. That is why a seasoned pilot like Captain Panesar has questioned even qualification of the probe committee members. “Was there a qualified pilot among the investigators? They are churning out more fiction than facts”, he says.