Air India suspends some long-haul flights after fatal crash and reduces the frequency of others
Air India has confirmed it is suspending some of its long-haul flights from Saturday, including routes using the same type of Boeing aircraft which crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad.
The decision follows last Thursday's fatal crash involving a Boeing 787-8 flight from Ahmedabad to Gatwick.
All but one of the 242 people on board were killed, with around 30 fatalities on the ground, in the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade.
It was confirmed on Wednesday that the sole survivor, a British national, had left hospital.
Most temporary reductions will last until at least mid-July, affecting both 787 and 777 aircraft types, and includes routes to Gatwick.
The firm said in a statement it was cutting international services because of "enhanced pre-flight safety checks" and to accommodate "additional flight durations arising from airspace closures in the Middle East".
Routes between Delhi-Nairobi, Amritsar-Gatwick and Goa-Gatwick are being suspended entirely.
0:34
The frequency of other services will also be reduced from Delhi, Bengaluru and Amritsar to certain destinations in North America, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Europe - including Heathrow and Birmingham.
The route between Ahmedabad and Gatwick remains unaffected.
Air India has apologised and promised to contact affected passengers to offer alternative flights or refunds.
The airline's chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran on Wednesday insisted the Boeing 787-8 aircraft had a "clean history".
"The right engine was a new engine put in [in] March 2025. The left engine was last serviced in 2023 and was due [its] next maintenance check in December 2025," he told the Indian channel Times Now..
Meanwhile, India's aviation regulator has issued warning notices to Air India for breaching safety rules after three of its Airbus planes flew despite being overdue checks on emergency slides and for being slow to address the issue, according to news agency Reuters.
The warning notices and an investigation report were not in any way related to last week's crash and were sent days before that incident.
The government has also said there has not been any decision yet on where the flight data recorders, also called black boxes, will be analysed.
Indian newspaper The Economic Times reported that they were due to be sent to the US so the data could be extracted, as they had suffered fire damage and could not be analysed in India.
The government said in a statement that India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) would decide where the recorders would be examined after making a "due assessment" of all technical, safety and security considerations.
Black boxes have two components - the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder - and provide crucial insights for crash investigators.
They include altitude, airspeed, the status of controls and pilot conversations which help determine probable causes of crashes.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Trump's Iran comments cool off oil rally, offering rupee respite
MUMBAI, June 20 (Reuters) - The Indian rupee is likely to open higher on Friday, buoyed by a decline in oil prices and a pullback in the U.S. dollar, while worries over the Israel-Iran conflict continue to linger. Non-deliverable forwards suggest the rupee will open in the 86.60 to 86.64 range, compared to 86.7225 in the previous session. The local unit fell to an over three-month low on Thursday, pressured by a surge in crude prices and hedging by importers. Brent crude futures were down 2%, having hit their highest level since mid-January on Thursday, amid the U.S. weighing whether to become involved in the Israel-Iran conflict. President Donald Trump will decide in the next two weeks whether the U.S. will become involved in the Israel-Iran air war, the White House said. This reduces speculation that the U.S. is planning to imminently join Israel in attacking Iran's nuclear facilities, ANZ Bank said, sparking a pullback in oil prices. "A consistent drop in oil is the best support the rupee can have," an FX trader at a private bank said. "The dollar's retreat, which is partly tied to reduced risk aversion, will help too. However, any meaningful rupee upside will need a material de-escalation in the Middle East conflict,' he said. The dollar index was back below the 99 handle while most Asian currencies were higher. The rupee, like most oil-sensitive Asian currencies, has been under pressure this week amid fears that a wider Middle East conflict could push oil prices higher and trigger a bout of risk aversion. The rupee is down 0.75% this week through Thursday, putting it on track for its worst weekly performance in one-and-a-half months. Brent crude, despite Friday's pullback, remained up nearly 4% for the week, adding to the nearly 12% surge it posted in the previous week. KEY INDICATORS: ** One-month non-deliverable rupee forward at 86.74; onshore one-month forward premium at 9.25 paise ** Dollar index down at 98.64 ** Brent crude futures down 2.3% at $77 per barrel ** Ten-year U.S. note yield at 4.39% ** As per NSDL data, foreign investors sold a net $69.2 mln worth of Indian shares on June 18 ** NSDL data shows foreign investors sold a net $2.8 mln worth of Indian bonds on June 18
Daily Mirror
an hour ago
- Daily Mirror
I'm a Celebrity star was supposed to be on doomed plane which crashed
Scarlette Douglas, who was on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! in 2022 and presented A Place in the Sun for seven years, spoke in the wake of the Air India plane crash Popular TV presenter Scarlette Douglas"hates flying" - because she was supposed to be on a doomed plane which crashed and killed more than 200 people. Although she hosted Channel 4 show A Place in the Sun for seven years, Scarlette dislikes air travel after her friend died when Air France Flight 447 crashed into the mid-Atlantic Ocean. All 228 people onboard, including Scarlette's mate, lost their lives in the global tragedy in June 2009. And Scarlette, who was on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! in 2022, was meant to be on the Airbus A330. Her friend booked both their spaces but Scarlette had a job in Hollywood so didn't travel in the end. The 38-year-old presenter, from Enfield, north London, made the heartbreaking remark at the Taste of London Food Festival opening party in Regent's Park this week. Speaking to a Daily Mail reporter, she said: "I lost a really good friend of mine in the Air France crash from Brazil to France. The scary thing was I was supposed to be on that flight. She had booked it." Scarlette says she "hates flying" as a result, a challenge during her role on A Place in the Sun. She hosted the programme and its various spin-offs between 2015 and 2022, before her I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! stint. The star was asked about flying in the wake of the Air India plane crash, which saw all but one of those onboard the Boeing die in a horror crash. Some 53 Brits were killed after the plane, destined for Gatwick Airport, collided into a medical college in Ahmedabad, western India. Although the investigation into the crash continues, an aviation expert has claimed the co-pilot pulled the plane's wing flaps instead of retracting the landing gear moments after take-off. But inconsistent airspeed indications and miscommunication led to the pilots inadvertently stalling the doomed Air France plane, on which Scarlette's friend travelled in 2009. They failed to recover the plane from the stall, and the plane crashed into the mid-Atlantic Ocean. The investigation was hampered because the aircraft's flight recorders were not recovered from the ocean floor until May 2011, nearly two years after the accident. Eventually, the final - and conclusive - report by France's Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) was published on July 2012. The majority of those onboard the four-year-old Airbus were Brazilians and French citizens. However, five tragic Brits died in the atrocity, including 11-year-old boy Alexander Bjoroy, oil worker Graham Gardner and PR executive Neil Warrior.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Indian markets set for muted open as Middle East tensions spur caution
June 20 (Reuters) - India's equity benchmarks are poised for a subdued start on Friday, in line with broader Asian markets, as escalating tensions between Israel and Iran continue to rattle global investor sentiment. The Gift Nifty futures were trading at 24,777.5, as of 7:46 a.m. IST, indicating that the Nifty 50 (.NSEI), opens new tab will open near the previous close of 24,793.25. Both the Nifty and Sensex (.BSESN), opens new tab indexes ended flat in the previous session, while the broader markets fell on risk-aversion mode. Asian peers (.MIAPJ0000PUS), opens new tab opened subdued on Friday after reports that Israel had bombed Iranian nuclear sites, triggering retaliatory missile and drone strikes from Iran. The White House said U.S. President Donald Trump would decide within two weeks whether the U.S. would back Israel militarily. Wall Street equities were closed on Thursday. "Investors are treading cautiously, with fears of U.S. involvement adding a fresh layer of uncertainty to an already volatile environment," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services. Domestic institutional investors (DII) remained net buyers of Indian stocks for the 23rd consecutive session on Thursday, with net inflows of 11.13 billion rupees ($128 million) in the previous session, cushioning volatile foreign flows and lending liquidity support to the markets. ** Mastek ( opens new tab launches a comprehensive suite of AI solutions aimed at driving enterprise-wide AI adoption ** Nestle India ( opens new tab says it will consider issuing bonus shares at a board meeting scheduled on June 26 ** ITD Cementation ( opens new tab secures contracts worth 9.6 billion rupees ** HDFC Bank's ( opens new tab unit HDB Financial Services sets a price band of 700-740 rupees per share for its initial public offering; issue to run from June 25-27 ($1 = 86.8130 Indian rupees)
