Air India crash: One week on, debris remains at site; investigation continues

The wreckage of Air India plane that crashed into a medical hostel complex in Ahmedabad (Image credit: AP)
NEW DELHI: It has been a week since the tragic Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad that claimed 274 lives. On Thursday, officials said that debris, including the aircraft's damaged tail fin, still remains at the crash site as investigators continue to search for clues to determine the exact cause of the accident.
The debris, including the tail fin, is still lying at the site. There are no orders yet to move the rubble elsewhere,' Ahmedabad's additional chief fire officer, Jayesh Khadia said.
Inspector DB Basiya of Meghaninagar police station confirmed that the AAIB will decide the fate of the plane wreckage.
'The police's role is limited to securing the area. AAIB will determine what to do with the remains, which may later be moved to another location for further examination,' he said.
The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), under the Ministry of Civil Aviation, is leading an investigation to understand the cause of one of the worst air disasters in recent times. AAIB officials have been making regular visits to the crash site as part of the ongoing probe.
Local fire personnel are assisting forensic and aviation experts with site operations.
On June 12, the London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, carrying 242 people, crashed into a hostel building of BJ Medical College in Meghaninagar just minutes after taking off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport at 1.39 pm.
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After the crash, the aircraft's tail fin got stuck at the top of the damaged building and was brought down using cranes on June 14, two days after the incident.
Days after the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) was recovered, investigators also located the Cockpit Voice Recorder on June 16. Officials said this crucial discovery could help in understanding the cause of the crash.
Officials confirmed the recovery of black boxes to PK Mishra, Principal Secretary to Prime Minister
Narendra Modi
, who inspected the site on Sunday.
While the AAIB has launched a detailed investigation, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is conducting a parallel probe under international protocols, as the crashed aircraft was American-made, according to an official release.

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We had to disembark from the firefighting vehicles and while some of us rushed towards the site on foot, others had to move people out of the way so that the firefighting vehicles and water bowsers could enter the area,' said another officer. All the officers that The Indian Express spoke to requested anonymity. Wall of fire and smoke 'When we finally reached the crash site, there was nothing but a wall of fire and smoke, and an intense radiating heat … Even the wind was blowing against us and with it, the heat and the smoke,' said an officer. Another officer, among the first to reach the site, said, 'When we reached there, we couldn't see anything… there were just flames. We couldn't even make out the hostel buildings from the fire. We didn't immediately understand the situation but wore our overalls and rushed to the site.' Said an officer, 'On approaching the site, we saw the debris of the aircraft… My first thought was to rescue people who may still be alive inside the building. 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We began firefighting in the hostel residences.' Notably, the mess building is located at a short distance from the cluster of four residential hostel buildings – Atulyam. On the top floor of a hostel building, a team saw two bodies lying next to each other in the passageway. It looked like the two individuals had tripped while attempting to escape the building. 'The bodies were completely charred,' said a member of this team, adding, 'We sought help from the military personnel to bring the bodies down but, at that point, the building was still on fire and they were not dressed for the situation like we were. Meanwhile, a few firefighters arrived with bedsheets in which they wrapped the two bodies along with another one we found inside the building, and brought them down.' 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So, when personnel began pulling the bodies out of the seats, most of the AFES officers were still involved in dousing the massive blaze and multiple blasts caused by the crash. 'We saw charred bodies, hands, legs, intestines everywhere. Some bodies were heaped on each other. Others were fused into each other to the extent we couldn't tell if it was one body or two… many bodies had missing parts lying far away,' said an officer. Another officer said, 'Most of the metal was so hot that we could hardly touch anything even after two hours… By 8.15 pm, the firefighters were drained, both emotionally and physically, to the extent that we could hardly bear to even speak to each other.' The Indian Express attempted to reach out to Chief Fire Officer Amit Dongre regarding the work done by the AFES but he remained unavailable for comment. In a government statement on June 16, Dongre was quoted as saying, 'The fire station teams of Naroda and Shahpur, which reached the scene first, gave a picture of the severity of the situation. In addition to Ahmedabad city, help was also sought from firefighters from Gandhinagar, Kheda, Anand, Vadodara, Gift City and the Army to control the emergency situation. More than 100 firefighting vehicles were deployed at the scene within a short period of time, due to which the rescue operation could be completed in just four hours.' The statement said that 7.50 lakh litres of water had been used to control and cool the fire. Modern resources like Gajraj (a kind of bowser) made the fire-fighting work easier, it added. One of the officers quoted above said around 650 trained personnel were involved in the firefighting operation. No firefighter suffered any injury or damage, he added. Story of two crashes Rajesh Bhatt, retired interim CFO of the AFES, who was a Station Officer at the time of the 1988 crash, told The Indian Express, 'At that time, the aircraft had crashed just short of the runway into the Kotarpur water works located to its north-east … There was nobody on the ground … At that time also, we initially did not realise where the plane had crashed.' He further said, 'In 1988, there was less fuel in the aircraft because it was landing, and not taking off like AI 171. So, the fire was also not as major as this one. Despite that, in my 40-year-long career, I have never been as scared as I was on that day. The scale of the disaster, the condition of the bodies, to pick them up and transport them, was the hardest thing we ever had to do in the line of duty. What our firefighters have done today is extremely commendable.'