Latest news with #aircrash
New York Times
21 hours ago
- General
- New York Times
As Dense Cities Encircle India's Busiest Airports, Dangers Multiply
Bhavesh Patni had just sat down with his family for a lunch of eggplant and potato curry when an Air India plane took off from the runway behind their home in the city of Ahmedabad, flew over their heads and crashed into a medical college campus visible from their building. As Mr. Patni climbed up to his terrace to watch the flames from a disaster that would ultimately kill 241 people on the plane and at least 34 on the ground, he shuddered as he thought about his family's proximity to the nightmare below them. In Ahmedabad, as in cities across this country of 1.4 billion people, there is little buffer between the increasingly busy airport and the densely populated neighborhoods that encircle it. That puts residents in the danger zone if anything goes wrong during takeoffs and landings, the time when most aviation accidents occur. This reality illustrates a pressing challenge for India. The country's growing wealth has given it the means to be more on the move. Air passenger traffic has doubled over the past decade, as has the number of operational airports. But India's expanding aviation ambitions have been superimposed on existing urban infrastructures that are already pushed to the limit by the rapid growth of cities. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CNA
4 days ago
- Business
- CNA
India regulator asks Air India for training data of pilots, dispatcher of crashed plane
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London with 242 people on board began losing height seconds after take-off in Ahmedabad on Thursday before crashing into nearby buildings. Everyone on board was killed, bar a single passenger, along with about 30 on the ground. Sumeet Sabharwal, who the Indian government has said had 8,200 flying hours of experience and was also an Air India instructor, was the commanding pilot of flight AI171. His co-pilot was Clive Kunder who had 1,100 hours of experience. Sabharwal's funeral took place in Mumbai on Tuesday. The watchdog requested for training details and supporting documents for the pilots, as well as for the flight dispatcher. The memo did not elaborate on the type of documents required, but accident investigations commonly look at a crew's training and qualifications, flight history, medical records and any actions previously taken against them. The memo did not raise any concerns with Air India's operations and some of the requests are standard in the aftermath of a major incident. Dispatchers are DGCA-certified ground-based airline employees whose role includes flight planning, assessing weather and airspace conditions, and coordination with the pilots. While the request for pilot training data was sent by the DGCA, the accident investigation is being led by another wing of the aviation ministry, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau. Air India's Chairman N Chandrasekaran told staff on Monday the incident should be a catalyst to build a safer airline. The DGCA, through a separate memo dated Jun 16, also asked flying schools across the country to "strictly follow additional safety and operational measures". The regulator said instructors must check for compliance with procedures concerning training, maintenance and licensing, and coordinate flight plans with nearby airports in advance to ensure any emergencies are dealt with swiftly. "Compliance will be assessed during audits/surveillance," said the memo by the Directorate of Flying Training, reviewed by Reuters. Stephanie Pope, the head of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, visited Air India's headquarters near New Delhi and met the airline's chairman to discuss the crash, Reuters reported on Monday. The crash poses a new challenge for Air India, which the Tata Group bought in 2022 and has been trying to revamp, and Boeing, which is trying to rebuild public trust following a series of safety and production crises. In a Jun 13 memo headed "updating airport emergency plan", seen by Reuters, government-managed airports have also been asked to conduct a full-scale training exercise - typically an emergency drill - on Jun 30.
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Health
- Telegraph
Which is the safest seat on a plane? Here's what the experts say
The survival of Vishwash Kumar Ramesh in the Air India crash is being named the ' Miracle of Seat 11A ', and much has been made of the fact that he had been sat beside the exit row. But are some plane seats really safer than others? Airline manufacturers insist not. They say that observing seat-belt signs and taking the brace position are the two things that will increase your chance of survival in an accident. Studies, however, suggest that there could be some deeper science into which seats come with a higher probability of survival in the event of a crash. The benefits of sitting beside an emergency exit Full details of Vishwash Kumar Ramesh's survival are not known, although when interviewed by local journalists in the aftermath of the crash he described being surrounded by bodies before standing up and climbing out of the plane via the emergency exit. Seat 11A is a front-row economy class seat, located directly next to an emergency exit on an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner. There are also emergency exits located at the front, middle and rear of the plane. The fact that Mr Ramesh was in seat 11A, directly next to an emergency exit, would have certainly improved his chances of survival having lived through the immediate impact of the crash. A University of Greenwich study, commissioned by the Civil Aviation Authority, checked the seating locations of 2,000 survivors in 105 accidents worldwide. They found that passengers who survived the immediate impact of a crash but were sitting more than six rows from the exit were less likely to live. Are wing seats marginally safer? Popular belief has it that sitting near the wings of an aircraft may increase your chance of survival, given that these seats are structurally reinforced. This could also have improved Mr Ramesh's chances of survival, given that seat 11A is located within the 'wing box' section of the plane. Professor Edwin Galea, Director of the Fire Safety Engineering Group (FSEG) at the University of Greenwich, told The Telegraph: 'The physically strongest part of the aircraft is the part of the fuselage where the wings are, called the wing box. It's where the wings join to the fuselage. That's the strongest part of the aircraft because there's the most structure there.' However, the fact that an aircraft's fuel supplies are stored within the wings could make this a more dangerous place to be sitting, depending on the circumstances of a crash. Is the back of the cabin really safer? Some studies suggest that you are most likely to survive an air crash if you are sitting towards the back of an aircraft. According to a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation of 20 crashes since 1971, that featured both fatalities and survivors, passengers sitting towards the rear of the cabin had a 69 per cent chance of survival. Those sitting at the front of the plane had a 49 per cent chance, while those sitting around the wing had a 59 per cent chance. This tallies with another study by the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) which looked at crashes from 1985 to 2000 and found that survival rates were 62 per cent at the front of the cabin, 61 per cent in the middle, and 68 per cent at the back of the plane. Explaining these percentages, MIT aeronautics and astronautics professor John Hansman describes the front of the aircraft as being a bit like a 'shock absorber' in certain crash scenarios. MIT ran a real-world simulation of a Boeing 727 plane crash in 2012, with an aircraft full of dummy passengers in a remote part of the Sonoran Desert in Baja California, Mexico. The experiment was broadcast live in a Channel 4 programme called The Crash. The simulation found that all first-class passengers would have died in the crash, with the passenger in 7A catapulted 500ft from the plane. The people in the middle of the plane would have suffered broken bones, while the people in the back of the plane would have walked away alive. Why the middle seat is preferable A report by the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) found that the middle seat comes with an increased chance of survival. Assessing disasters from 1985 to 2020, the FAA found that passengers sitting in the middle seats of the back row had a 28 per cent fatality rate, making it the safest place in the plane. It could be that passengers in the middle seat are partially protected by those either side of them, who will absorb some of the impact of the crash. In addition, aisle seats are more likely to suffer from falling debris from the overhead lockers during a crash, while passengers in window seats could experience the longest waits before evacuating an aircraft. A sense check from an aviation expert Professor Graham Braithwaite, Director of Aerospace and Aviation Cranfield University, stresses the incredible safety record of modern aircraft. 'All seats on modern jet aircraft are incredibly safe,' he told The Telegraph. 'The accident record is incredible, especially if you compare it to other modes of transport like driving. 'The design of the seat and even the fixtures around them must meet strict crashworthiness standards as well as flammability standards. The space around exits and the distance between a seat and an exit is also tightly controlled. 'We shouldn't forget the role of the cabin crew too – essential in an emergency where we know their commands can make all the difference. 'Passengers can contribute to their own safety by reading the safety card and listening to the crew briefing. In an evacuation, leaving their luggage behind will help their survival as well as those behind them. 'While today's accident would be very difficult to survive, it is unusual. The majority of aircraft accidents are survivable these days. This is partly because every time an accident happens, we take the time to investigate – not to apportion blame or liability but to learn lessons to prevent recurrence. 'This is cultural and something that has helped make aviation safe.'
The Sun
4 days ago
- General
- The Sun
Tragedy as bride, 21, bound for London to start new life with doctor husband among those killed in Air India crash
A BRIDE bound for London to start a new life with her doctor husband was among those killed in the air crash. Khushboo Rajpurohit, 21, had not seen Vipul Rajpurohit, 25, since shortly after their wedding six months ago. 1 Vipul had returned to Britain for work and had been decorating their home in readiness for his wife's arrival. Excited Khushboo had been driven to the airport at Ahmedabad by her dad, Madan, who runs a sweet shop. They posed for a selfie outside the terminal which he posted on a family WhatsApp group before waving her off and driving home. His daughter, an IT worker in Rajasthan, had earlier visited her temple to ask blessings for her journey. Shortly after the Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner took off, her family learned of the crash. A family friend said: 'Madan is devastated — the whole family are. 'It never occurred to any of them that this would be their final goodbye.' Heartbroken Vipul has since flown back to India
The Independent
7 days ago
- Automotive
- The Independent
Is flying safe after devastating Air India tragedy?
The heartbreaking loss of Air India flight AI171 from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick is an example of an extremely rare event: a large jet crashing on an intercontinental air route. Many prospective travellers will see the images of the tragedy in India, and three other passenger jet crashes in the past six months, and conclude that aviation is becoming more dangerous. Yet without diminishing these disasters and the devastating human toll, this remains the safest decade in aviation history. Such is the obsession with safety among aviation professionals that many risks have been engineered out. The last fatal accident involving a UK passenger jet was in the 1980s. In 2023, accidents and fatalities were at a record low, with no scheduled passenger jets involved in fatal crashes. In the final week of 2024, more than 200 people lost their lives in two separate incidents: the Christmas Day crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer E190, followed by the loss four days later of a Jeju Air Boeing 737 on arrival at Muan in South Korea. In January, an American Airlines regional jet collided with a US army Black Hawk helicopter in Washington DC, taking the lives of all 67 on board. Attention will also be focused on the Boeing safety culture. Shocking shortcomings at the plane manufacturer were exposed in the aftermath of two fatal crashes of the Boeing 737 Max. Design flaws led to the temporary grounding of the aircraft worldwide, and in 2024 another incident, in which a door plug burst open at 16,000 feet, triggered further investigations. This is the first fatal incident involving the 787. Soon after it entered service in 2011, concerns over the fire risk from lithium batteries led to a temporary grounding. There is no indication that the crash was connected with technical issues on board the aircraft. More than 1,000 Boeing 787 aircraft are in service with dozens of international airlines, including British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, both of which have exemplary safety records. As news emerged of the tragedy in India, the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) was publishing its Annual Safety Review for 2024. In the report, Crispin Orr, the chief inspector, said: 'Major accidents in Japan, Brazil, Kazakhstan, and the Republic of Korea in 2024 serve as a sobering reminder that safety must never be taken for granted. 'Thorough investigations into accidents and serious incidents continue to be needed to uncover remaining vulnerabilities.' But he also pointed out: 'Commercial aviation remains one of the safest forms of public transport, with global accident rates continuing their long-term decline." This is particularly relevant at a time when the terrible death toll on the roads of India shows no sign of decline; on a typical day, nearly 500 people sadly lose their lives in traffic accidents.
