New Delhi/Bangalore, April 27: The country's civil aviation regulator on Friday said that it has set up a two-member panel to investigate into the cause of a snag reported in the aircraft which ferried Congress President Rahul Gandhi to Hubballi in Karnataka on Thursday.
According to a senior official with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), a "Falcon 2000 aircraft VT-AVH was involved in an incident while operating flight" from New Delhi to Hubballi.
"Operator has reported the incident to DGCA. As per operator report, it was snag of autopilot mode and pilot shifted to manual mode and aircraft landed safely. Autopilot failure incidents are not uncommon," a senior DGCA official told IANS in New Delhi.
"For any VIP flight DGCA investigates thoroughly. DGCA has set up a two member committee."
However, Hubballi Airport Director Ahilya S. Kakodikar said that no complaint has been received from the pilot of an aircraft which reportedly developed a snag when Gandhi was flying in it on Thursday.
"Neither the pilot nor the air traffic control (ATC) complained to me about the snag," Hubballi airport Director Ahilya S. Kakodikar told reporters.
The director of the airport, which is managed by the state-run Airports Authority of India (AAI), also stressed that the aircraft had landed safely.
"It was a safe landing. In case of any abnormalities, the ATC would have recorded it," she said.
The Congress on Thursday complained to the Karnataka Police that the Falcon 2000 aircraft in which Gandhi and four others flew to Hubballi, about 400km northwest of state capital Bengaluru, from Delhi had suffered a mid-air snag.
The complaint, addressed to the state's Director General of Police Neelamani N. Raju, requested the state police chief to "ground" the aircraft at Hubballi and investigate the malfunction.
Based on the complaint by Congress official Shakir Sanadi, the police in Hubballi lodged a First Information Report late on Thursday.
Gandhi arrived in Hubballi around 11.25 a.m. on Thursday on a two-day visit to the state to launch the party's campaign for the May 12 assembly elections.
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases; Total tally now 52
ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.
