Ahmedabad, May 13 (IANS) Family members of victims of the Air India AI-171 crash in Ahmedabad have demanded that the final investigation report be “fair” and that the Black Box and raw flight data be shared transparently with relatives.
They also said the investigation should not attribute responsibility solely to the pilots without fully disclosing the technical findings, while speaking at a gathering in Ahmedabad ahead of the first anniversary of the tragedy.
The London-bound Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad on June 12 last year, killing 260 people, including passengers, crew members and people on the ground.
The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is investigating the crash, while Union Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu recently said the final report was likely within a month.
At the gathering, around 50 affected families said compensation alone could not answer questions surrounding the cause of the accident and repeatedly called for the release of Black Box data and the “truth” behind the crash.
Krutik Patel, a resident of Kapadvanj in Gujarat’s Kheda district, told IANS that his 24-year-old younger brother, Dirth Patel, died in the crash while travelling back to Leeds in the UK.
“Actually, me, my brother and my wife all lived together in Leeds. He had completed his Masters and came back to India in March to meet our parents. His job was supposed to start in July, so he was travelling on the June 12 flight,” Patel said.
He confirmed that the family had received the compensation announced by Tata Sons and Air India, but said their primary demand was for a transparent probe.
“Whatever report comes, it should be a fair report. It should not simply put all the blame on the pilot,” he told IANS.
He further added, “Whatever happened on the flight, the truth should come out. Since everything that happens during the flight is recorded in the Black Box, all of that should come out fairly. It should not be that someone publishes a false report.”
Patel said his family did not believe the crash was caused by pilot error alone and alleged there may have been technical and maintenance issues with the aircraft.
“We do not believe at all that this could have happened because of pilot error. Whatever happened may have been because Air India perhaps did not maintain the aircraft properly, because people were already saying that the flight coming from Delhi had water leaking inside and perhaps there was also a problem with the electricity supply,” he said.
Patel also said that after the crash, his wife and he left their settled life in the UK and returned permanently to India in October to stay with his parents.
Speaking about the belongings recovered after the accident, he said the family had avoided searching through the uploaded items because of the emotional trauma attached to them.
“We were getting emotional just trying to look through them, because if we saw something related to him then the whole family might once again go back into the same emotional trauma,” he said.
Janvi Purohit, whose brother Akash died in the crash, told IANS that although compensation had been received by the family, they were seeking “justice, not money”.
“My brother was everything to me. After he left, I feel my brother’s absence very deeply,” she said.
Janvi said her father and sister-in-law were handling compensation matters, while she herself had been approached regarding employment.
She said the CEO of Tata Croma and a woman identified as Ravneet had spoken to her about a job opportunity.
“I went for an interview at Tata Croma, but they only offered me a sales job for Rs 11,000,” she said.
Questioning reports surrounding the aircraft’s condition before the crash, she said: “Right now I want to know what happened in the plane. I am hearing that the plane was already damaged, there was a fault in the plane. Then why was the plane flown? I want to know this.”
“I lost my brother, my parents lost their son. No other family should suffer like this. Whose negligence is this?” she added.
Her father, Nilesh Purohit, who identified himself as a farmer, told IANS that his family’s “main demand” remained pending.
“The main demand is how did this plane accident happen? Whether there was a technical fault or some other reason, we want that report. We want the Black Box data and we want the final compensation from Air India,” he said.
Purohit confirmed that the family had received Rs 1 crore from Tata Sons and Rs 25 lakh from Air India.
He also referred to statements by the Aviation Minister that a final report could be released within one month.
“The government should prepare the report honestly. Whatever fault was there in the plane should be honestly revealed so that such an accident never happens again and no father like me loses his son again,” he said.
Purohit alleged that there had been technical issues with the aircraft before the crash and claimed that Akash had earlier sent a mail mentioning faults in the aircraft.
“He had written that there was a problem with the electricity and that the tablets were not functioning. So we are completely sure that there was definitely some defect in the plane,” he alleged.
Mohammad Rafiq from Diu, whose 25-year-old son died while travelling back to London for Islamic religious studies, told IANS that his family had still not received compensation from Air India and had struggled to get responses from the airline.
“He had come from London to Ahmedabad and was travelling back to London. He was studying an Islamic religion-related course there,” Rafiq said.
He alleged that Air India representatives had initially remained in touch with families and assured support, but communication later reduced significantly.
“They asked us for details of travel expenses, accommodation expenses and bills. We submitted everything, but after that they stopped responding. Their mail IDs stopped working, they do not answer calls, nor do they reply to us,” he alleged.
Rafiq said there was no Air India office locally where affected families could seek assistance. “We only want justice and answers about how this accident happened. Such an incident should not happen to anyone else again,” he told IANS.
He also demanded access to the Black Box data and said “families deserved answers regarding the deaths of their children”.
Rafiq said he currently works as a driver and lives in Diu. “My family had received Rs 2 lakh assistance from the Diu administration,” he noted.
Hetal Prajapati, originally from Vadodara and now residing in Ahmedabad, told IANS that her husband, Mahesh Kalavadiya, a film director in his mid-30s, died on the ground during the crash.
She said the family had received Rs 1.25 crore in compensation but added that she was now demanding employment support after remaining at home for the past six months.
Prajapati also demanded that the Black Box data be released publicly and referred to the one-year deadline indicated by the Aviation Ministry regarding the investigation report.
Social activist Kuldip Ishrani, also known as Kaviraj, who said he was in direct contact with nearly 200 affected families, told IANS that relatives had gathered in Ahmedabad as the first anniversary of the crash approached on June 12.
He said families from different religious communities wanted permission to organise purification rituals and religious ceremonies at the crash site.
“Every member of those families wants that at the crash site there should either be a land purification ceremony or some kind of religious programme. People from every religion want to perform their respective rituals,” he said.
Ishrani said the families had consistently demanded that the Black Box “raw data” be shared with them.
He added that families were also in contact with the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP), which has more than 6,000 pilots associated with it.
According to him, FIP president Captain C.S. Randhawa had written letters to both AAIB India and the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB UK), but no response had been received.
The families’ demands include a greater and more active role for AAIB UK in the investigation, that AAIB UK should seek raw data and investigation-related documents from AAIB India, that Captain Randhawa’s submissions should be properly reviewed, and that investigators should examine whether the aircraft’s Ram Air Turbine was deployed during the emergency.
–IANS
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