For 24 Seconds, Pilots Did Not Have Control Over Plane Carrying Rahul Gandhi Ahead of Karnataka Poll
New Delhi, August 31: The extent of Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s mid-air scare ahead of Karnataka polls has been revealed as aviation regulator DGCA made public its report on the incident after more than three months.
The probe report ruled out any conspiracy, as was alleged by the Congress at the time, but accepted that the aircraft’s crew had a delayed response to a steep loss of altitude after the autopilot function developed a snag. It took the pilots 24 seconds to get the chartered plane under control, DGCA said.
On April 26, the 10-seater plane carrying Gandhi had suddenly tilted heavily on the left side and the altitude dipped steeply with violent shuddering of the aircraft body before landing at the Hubli airport in north Karnataka. Besides Gandhi, there were four other passengers, two pilots, one cabin crew and one engineer when the incident took place.
Gandhi was going to attend a rally ahead of the assembly polls in the state. Alleging "intentional tampering" with aircraft, the Congress party had demanded a probe into the "suspicious and faulty performance" of the aircraft.
Congress leader Manish Tiwari said the DGCA report about the “near escape” of Gandhi in the plane malfunction was very disturbing and demanded that the report be vetted by security and aviation experts to ascertain if it was a technical malfunction or something else.
In its 30-page report, the two-member committee set up by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to probe the incident, said there was no prior snag in the Ligare Aviation-operated private Falcon 2000 jet, registered as VT-AVH.
"Crew initiated action only when the master cautions warning i.e after 15 seconds of autopilot disengage," the DGCA said in its report on the four-month-old incident.
Such a warning appears in the form of a red light and audio warning in the cockpit for the pilot to take action and avoid in the split second and avoid any mishap.
The aircraft was finally recovered to straight and level flight 24 seconds after the autopilot got disengaged. In these 24 seconds, the plane had lost 735 feet of altitude.
“From the above it is inferred that the crew actions were slightly delayed to take the corrective actions,” the report said, blaming “lack of institutional awareness of the crew.”
After the incident, the Congress chief had said the plane had suddenly come down by 8,000 feet and he had believed it would be his end. He said that after the narrow escape, he had decided to thank Lord Shiva by undertaking the pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar.
Gandhi's close aide Kaushal Vidyarthi, who was also travelling with him, had filed a complaint with local police besides writing to the Karnataka Director General of Police expressing concern over the series of events.
Following this, civil aviation minister Suresh Prabhu had ordered a detailed probe into the incident. Subsequently, the DGCA had set up the panel, with one member each from the safety and airworthiness wings, to investigate the incident.
Courtesy: www.news18.com
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
