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Planning to Fly Air India? Or in India?
Read This First, Please!
DEAN NELSON
An Air India pilot has been suspended following claims that he and his co-pilot put more than 160 passengers at risk during a short international flight by leaving two female cabin attendants in charge of their airliner while they slept in business class seats.
They were only forced to return 40 minutes later when the attendants accidentally switched off the plane's auto-pilot switch, according to the claims.
The alleged incident happened at 33,000 feet during an Air India flight from Bangkok to Delhi last month.
It follows a series of serious concerns over air safety in India.
Earlier this year an Indian Airlines pilot was discovered to be drunk shortly before he was due to fly a passenger aircraft.
In 2010 a number of Indian pilots were found to have fake licenses, while in March this year a UN report said India was among the worst 13 countries in the world for air safety.
According to this latest complaint, the Air India co-pilot had asked one of the attendants to sit in his seat while he went to the bathroom, and shortly after, the pilot asked another female attendant to take his seat while he left the cockpit to sleep.
Following the complaints, Air India launched an inquiry into the incident and suspended the pilot.
Today it denied passenger safety was ever compromised. In a statement released, it said two cabin attendants had overstayed the permitted length of stay in the cockpit, but denied that either the pilot or co pilot had at any point left the cockpit.
The airline did however confirm that the pilots had been distracted while the attendants were in the cockpit and that the auto-pilot had been disconnected during the incident.
"It is categorically stated that at no point of time the cockpit was left unattended by the cockpit crew. Based on a report that two cabin crew members were in the cockpit for a prolonged period on the said flight, the airline management pro-actively summoned the cockpit and cabin crew for an inquiry. As the inquiry confirmed the overstay of the cabin crew in the cockpit, administrative action was taken against them and the pilot.
"They have been suspended pending the final inquiry of the incident," the airline said in a statement.
"During the incident, due to distraction the co-pilot had touched the auto-pilot disconnect button momentarily but the same was connected back," it added.
A plea to all, everywhere: Be Patriotic. Stay Alive. Don't Fly "Air India"!
[Courtesy: The Telegraph]
May 4, 2013
Conversation about this article
1: Mandeep Singh (New Delhi, India), May 04, 2013, 5:31 AM.
The first thing you do in India is flatly deny everything. Then ... maybe ... you look at the evidence and decide whether it is better to continue denying, or whether you should cook up a story. Most of the horror stories from our airlines don't even make it into the news. What's the point? In this country, if your chances of successfully crossing the road are 95%, it's lauded as excellent odds. There'll be many who will even claim it's the best odds anywhere! ... And praise Hindutva for the achievement!
2: Ali Hussain (Hyderabad, India), May 09, 2013, 2:14 AM.
When I came across a string of problems during a flight on Air India -- mosquitoes (on an international flight!); ear-plugs that wouldn't work; no audio on the music or movie channels, etc, -- I complained to the Air India attendant. His response: "What more do you expect? This is Air India!"