New Delhi: The Union Minister of Civil Aviation on Friday held a press briefing, providing a detailed account of the Air India plane crash that occurred on Thursday. In the wake of the incident, the Minister emphasized the need for enhanced safety measures and announced that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has initiated extended surveillance of Boeing 787 aircraft. “There are 34 Boeing 787s in the Indian fleet. Eight have already been inspected, and the remaining will undergo urgent checks,” the Minister said, underlining the government’s swift response to the tragedy.

Giving the details about the chain of events, Samir Kumar Sinha, Secretary of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, said “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.”

“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,” he added.

The senior official also stated that the incident occurred at 1:40 p.m., and within 3.5 hours, the entire Civil Aviation team — including the Union Minister (who was in Vijayawada), the Minister of State, DGCA, AAI Chairman, and other senior officials — had reached the site. A joint control room was activated immediately with the DGCA, BCAS, CISF, and AAI. Emergency and helpline numbers were shared via social media and PIB.

Addressing the media, Union Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu says “The last two days have been, very difficult. The accident that happened near Ahmedabad airport shook the entire nation. My deepest condolences to all the families who have lost their loved ones in the incident… I personally rushed to the site to oversee what needs to be done, what support needs to be provided and that was the attitude of the government of Gujarat also. The attitude was the same from GoI and the other people at the ministry also. Once we rushed to the site, we already saw the response teams from all the concerned departments were working on ground, actively trying to rescue whatever is possible, trying to cut down the fire and to move the debris so that the bodies can be sent to the hospital at the earliest. Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, which was formed specifically to look into the incidents, accidents that happen around aircrafts, was immediately mobilised.”

“One important update from the technical investigation which is happening through the AAIB is the recovery of the black box yesterday around 5pm from the site, the AAIB team believes that this decoding of the black box is going to give a, in depth insight into what would have actually happened during the process of the crash or moments before the crash itself. We are also eagerly waiting for what the results or the report is going to be once the AAIB goes through its full investigation,” the minister added.

“We have very strict safety standards in the country. We do have a very robust protocol which we follow every time. But, when the incident happened, we also felt that there is a need to do an extended surveillance into the Boeing 787 Series. DGCA has also given an order to do the extended surveillance for the 787 planes. There are 34 in our Indian aircraft fleet today. I believe that 8 have already been inspected and with immediate urgency, all of them are going to be done and furthermore as the probe is going to process and report is going to come, we are going to imporve every necessary thing that is going to come our way to improve the safety,” the minister further said. DeshGujarat