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The Minister of Civil Aviation held a press conference regarding the Air India 171 crash and detailed the developments since the incident that took place on Thursday afternoon.
On June 12, the London Gatwick-bound Boeing 787-8 aircraft crashed soon after taking off from the Ahmedabad airport, killing at least 241 people on board, and several others on the ground. (PTI)
As probe into the Air India 171 crash begins, the Ministry of Civil Aviation on Saturday detailed how the incident took place on Thursday afternoon and expressed hope about finding out about cause of the crash once the data from black box, which was recovered last evening, is decoded.
Samir Kumar Sinha, Secretary of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, said that the London-bound flight took off at 1.39 pm and crashed at a distance of 2 km from the airport. He confirmed that the pilot sent a Mayday call to the Air Traffic Controller, however, as the ATC tried to contact the plane, no response was received.
“On 12th June around 2PM, we received the information that the plane going from Ahmedabad to Gatwick London had crashed. We immediately got detailed information about this through ATC Ahmedabad. This was an AIC 171 and there were a total of 242 people on board, including 230 passengers, 2 pilots and 10 crew members. This plane took off at 1:39 pm and within a few seconds, after reaching a height of about 650 feet, it started sinking, i.e., it started losing height. At 1:39 pm, the pilot informed Ahmedabad ATC that it was a May Day, i.e., full emergency. According to ATC, when it tried to contact the plane, it did not receive any response,” Sinha said at a joint press briefing with Minister of Civil Aviation Ram Mohan Naidu.
” Exactly after 1 minute, this plane crashed in Medhaninagar, which is located at a distance of about 2 km from the airport. The captain of the plane was Sumit Sabharwal and the first officer was Clive Sundar. As far as the entire history of the plane is concerned, before this accident, the plane had completed Paris-Delhi-Ahmedabad sector without any accident. Due to the accident, the runway was closed at 2:30 pm and after completing all the protocols, the runway of Ahmedabad was opened for limited flights from 5 PM,” the secretary added.
More to follow…
Mahima Joshi, Sub-Editor at News18.com, works with the India and Breaking team. Covering national stories and bringing breaking news to the table are her forte. She is deeply interested in Indian politics and a…Read More
Mahima Joshi, Sub-Editor at News18.com, works with the India and Breaking team. Covering national stories and bringing breaking news to the table are her forte. She is deeply interested in Indian politics and a… Read More
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