Major tragedy averted on Air India flight: report

Karma Paljor , CNN-IBN 
Posted on Dec 04, 2010 at 11:06 | Updated Dec 04, 2010 at 16:58

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New Delhi: A major tragedy was averted on Air India Dubai-Pune flight on July 26, 2010. CNN-IBN has accessed a Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) report which says that the lives of 113 passengers in the flight were at risk.

On July 26, 2010, Air India IX 212 with 113 people on board departed from Dubai for Pune at 4:30 PM. The departure was smooth and the aircraft reached it cruising altitude of 37000 feet. The commander then switched to auto pilot at 53 minutes past 5. He then left for the washroom. That is when things started to fall apart.

The aircraft started to descend rapidly. The commander rushed to the cockpit and buzzed the co-pilot to let him in, but there was no response. The 25-year-old co-pilot was in shock, hence unable to move.

The commander was finally able to punch in his emergency code and enter the cockpit. By now 40 precious seconds had been lost and the aircraft had already lost over 6800 feet in altitude. The cockpit was abuzz with alarms.

The commander took charge, managed to control the aircraft and brought it back to 37,000 ft. Fortunately no one was injured.

But the incident could have been a huge disaster. The DGCA report, a copy of which is with CNN-IBN, says that the continuation of rapid descent would have lead to catastrophic structural failure of aircraft in air. The yanking of controls by the commander could have also lead to loss of controls of the aircraft. The aircraft could have also strayed into the path of other planes causing a mid-air collision.

The question is how dangerous could it have been. The aircraft started to lose altitude at a rapid rate after which the pilot reached inside the cockpit and tried to align the aircraft straight again

But so much pressure was applied to the aircraft to bring it to a straight position that anything could have happened to it. The DGCA report clearly states that there could have been structural damage.

In fact there was so much pressure coming onto the aircraft that the wings could have been damaged. The control surfaces and elevators which are very crucial for the aircraft to pan left or right or for the elevators to take the aircraft up or down could have been damaged. A loss of control for the aircraft could have been a very tragic accident.

CNN-IBN asks:

Why does not Air India have a pilot training instructor since 2008? Why was the co-pilot not trained to handle such an emergency?

(source  ibn live)

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