The report of the investigation into the 2018 Air India Express plane crash in Tiruchi is a cover-up to exonerate the pilots, says aviation safety expert Captain Mohan Ranganathan. Not only did pilot error result in insufficient thrust, but the cockpit crew also endangered the passengers’ lives by continuing to fly for close to four hours despite a damaged aircraft in order to ensure that crucial data recording was deleted, he alleges.
On October 11, 2018, the flight from Tiruchi to Dubai with 130 passengers hit the airport boundary wall and the antennas of a ground-based navigation aid during take-off, resulting in a gaping wound in the aircraft belly. Despite the ATC informing the pilots of the damage, the crew continued to fly till Muscat airspace, where they were ordered to make a landing in Mumbai.
The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau in its report made public recently has blamed a snag in the pilot-in-command (PIC)’s reclining seat for the incident.
Captain Mohan Ranganathan, a former member of the Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Council and former airline instructor pilot on Boeing 737NGs, says the probe has been whitewashed to ensure pilots go scot-free. “The report fails to fault the pilots for continuing to fly. This is a criminal act,” he alleges.
“The thrust lever moving back to 75% thrust is an indication that it wasn’t the backrest that reclined inadvertently, but in fact the pilot failed to lock his seat and the entire seat moved backwards,” he notes.
