Families hold funerals for Air India crash victims
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Arab News
27-07-2025
- Arab News
Crowd surge at Hindu temple in northern India leaves at least 6 dead
LUCKNOW: A crowd surge at a popular Hindu temple in northern India left at least six people dead and dozens injured, local authorities said Sunday. The incident in the pilgrimage city of Haridwar occurred after a high-voltage electric wire reportedly fell on a temple path, triggering panic among the large crowd of devotees. Vinay Shankar Pandey, a senior government official in Uttarakhand state where the incident happened, confirmed the deaths and said worshippers scrambled for safety following the incident. Some 29 people were injured, according to Haridwar city's senior police official Pramendra Singh Doval. Thousands of pilgrims had gathered at the Mansa Devi hilltop temple, which is a major site for Hindu devotees, especially on weekends and festival days, local officials said. They were celebrating the holy month of Shravan. Someone in the crowd shouted about an electric current on the pathway around 9am. 'Since the path is narrow and meant only for foot traffic, confusion and panic spread instantly,' said local priest Ujjwal Pandit. 'A wall along the path is also suspected to have worsened the crowd bottleneck,' he added. Police and emergency services rushed to the scene and launched a rescue operation. The injured were transported to a nearby hospital, officials said. 'The situation is now under control,' Pandey told the Associated Press by phone from Haridwar. 'But the panic led to tragic consequences.' Authorities are investigating what caused the overhead wire to collapse, and whether proper crowd management protocols were in place. The town of Haridwar draws millions of visitors each year. The Mansa Devi temple, which is accessible by cable car or foot, is a major pilgrimage site that draws thousands of visitors daily during Shravan. Crowd surges at religious gatherings are not uncommon in India, where massive groups often congregate at temples or pilgrimage sites, sometimes overwhelming local infrastructure and security measures. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his condolences to the victims and their families in a social media post and wished for a fast recovery for those who were injured.
Arab News
25-07-2025
- Arab News
Investigators find black boxes from crashed Russia plane
MOSCOW: Investigators have recovered flight data recorders from the wreckage of a plane that crashed in Russia's far east, killing 48 people, and will send them for analysis, Russian authorities said Friday. The aircraft, an Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was making a second attempt to land in the remote Siberian town of Tynda when it disappeared from radar around 1:00 p.m. local time (0400 GMT) on Thursday. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 15 kilometers (nine miles) south of Tynda's airport. Prosecutors have not commented on what may have caused the crash, but a rescuer quoted by the TASS news agency said the twin-propeller plane — almost 50 years old — was attempting to land in thick cloud. Investigators are looking into whether the crash was caused by technical malfunction or human error, the agency reported. 'The flight recorders have been found at the crash site and will be delivered to Moscow for decryption in the near future,' Russia's transport ministry said in a statement. Russian authorities have also launched an investigation into the plane's operator, Angara Airlines, and whether it complied with regulations, it added. 'Based on the findings, a decision will be made on the company's future operations,' the ministry said. Angara Airlines, a small regional carrier based in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, said it was doing 'everything possible to investigate the circumstances of the accident.' The company's CEO, Sergei Salamanov, told Russia's REN TV channel on Thursday that it was the plane's captain — an experienced pilot with 11,000 hours of flight time — who decided to make the flight. 'The weather forecast was unfavorable,' he said. The plane came down in a hard-to-reach area and it took a ground rescue team hours to reach the site. Russia's transport ministry said the families of the 48 killed — six of whom were crew — would receive five million rubles' ($63,000) compensation each. The number killed could have risen to 49 if the Marina Avalyan, who was already sitting on the plane, had not been asked by her daughter to urgently get off and return home, according to a story reported by Argumenty i Fakty newspaper. The daughter wanted Avalyan to look after her newborn baby, as she was taking her second child to a hospital, the daily said. 'I have no words to describe it: is this a miracle? Thank God she returned! My child has saved my mother,' Zimina told Argumenty i Fakty.
Saudi Gazette
22-07-2025
- Saudi Gazette
Voices in the cockpit fuelling controversy over Air India crash
DELHI — When the preliminary report into the crash of Air India Flight 171, which killed 260 people in June, was released, many hoped it would bring some measure of closure. Instead, the 15-page report added fuel to a firestorm of speculation. For, despite the measured tone of the report, one detail continues to haunt investigators, aviation analysts and the public alike. Seconds after take-off, both fuel-control switches on the 12-year-old Boeing 787 abruptly moved to "cut-off", cutting fuel to the engines and causing total power loss - a step normally done only after landing. The cockpit voice recording captures one pilot asking the other why he "did the cut-off", to which the person replies that he didn't. The recording doesn't clarify who said what. At the time of take-off, the co-pilot was flying the aircraft while the captain was monitoring. The switches were returned to their normal inflight position, triggering automatic engine relight. At the time of the crash, one engine was regaining thrust while the other had relit but had not yet recovered power. The plane was airborne for less than a minute before crashing into a neighbourhood in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. Several speculative theories have emerged since the preliminary report - a full report is expected in a year or so. The Wall Street Journal and Reuters news agency have reported that "new details in the probe of last month's Air India crash are shifting the focus to the senior pilot in the cockpit". Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera claimed that its sources had told them the first officer repeatedly asked the captain why he "shut off the engines". Sumeet Sabharwal, 56, was the captain on the flight, while Clive Kunder, 32, was the co-pilot who was flying the plane. Together, the two pilots had more than 19,000 hours of flight experience - nearly half of it on the Boeing 787. Both had passed all pre-flight health checks before the crash. Understandably, the wave of speculative leaks has rattled investigators and angered Indian pilots. Last week, India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), the lead investigator, stated in a release that "certain sections of the international media are repeatedly attempting to draw conclusions through selective and unverified reporting". It described these "actions [as] irresponsible, especially while the investigation remains ongoing". Jennifer Homendy, chairwoman of the US's National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is assisting the investigation, said on X that the media reports were "premature and speculative" and that 'investigations of this magnitude take time". Back in India, the Indian Commercial Pilots' Association condemned the rush to blame the crew as "reckless" and "deeply insensitive", urging restraint until the final report is out. Sam Thomas, head of the Airline Pilots' Association of India (ALPA India), told the BBC that "speculation has triumphed over transparency", emphasising the need to review the aircraft's maintenance history and documentation alongside the cockpit voice recorder data. At the heart of the controversy is the brief cockpit recording in the report - the full transcript, expected in the final report, should shed clearer light on what truly happened. A Canada-based air accident investigator, who preferred to remain unnamed, said that the excerpt of the conversation in the report presents several possibilities. For example, "if pilot 'B' was the one who operated the switches - and did so unwittingly or unconsciously - it's understandable that they would later deny having done it," the investigator said. "But if pilot 'A' operated the switches deliberately and with intent, he may have posed the question knowing full well that the cockpit voice recorder would be scrutinised, and with the aim of deflecting attention and avoiding identification as the one responsible. "Even if the AAIB is eventually able to determine who said what, that doesn't decisively answer the question 'Who turned the fuel off?'". "We may even never know the answer to that question." Investigators told the BBC that while there appeared to be strong evidence the fuel switches were manually turned off, it's still important to keep "an open mind". A glitch in the plane's Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC) system, which monitors engine health and performance, could, in theory, trigger an automatic shutdown if it receives false signals from sensors, some pilots suggest. However, if the pilot's exclamation — 'why did you cut-off [the fuel]?' — came after the switches moved to cut-off (as noted in the preliminary report), it would undermine that theory. The final report will likely include time-stamped dialogue and a detailed analysis of engine data to clarify this. Speculation has been fuelled less by who said what, and more by what wasn't said. The preliminary report withheld the full cockpit voice recorder (CVR) transcript, revealing only a single, telling line from the final moments. This selective disclosure has raised questions: was the investigation team confident about the speakers' identities but chose to withhold the rest out of sensitivity? Or are they still uncertain whose voices they were hearing and needed more time to fully investigate the matter before publishing any conclusions? Peter Goelz, former NTSB managing director, says the AAIB should release a voice recorder transcript with pilot voices identified. "If any malfunctions began during take-off, they would be recorded in the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and would likely have triggered alerts in the flight management system - alerts the crew would almost certainly have noticed and, more importantly, discussed." Investigators are urging restraint in drawing conclusions. "We have to be cautious because it's easy to assume that if the switches were turned off, it must mean intentional action - pilot error, suicide, or something else. And that's a dangerous path to go down with the limited information we have," Shawn Pruchnicki, a former airline accident investigator and aviation expert at Ohio State University, told the BBC. At the same time, alternative theories continue to circulate. Indian newspapers including the Indian Express flagged a possible electrical fire in the tail as a key focus. But the preliminary report makes clear: the engines shut down because both fuel switches were moved to cut-off - a fact backed by recorder data. If a tail fire occurred, it likely happened post-impact, triggered by spilled fuel or damaged batteries, an independent investigator said. Last week, AAIB chief GVG Yugandhar stressed that the preliminary report aims to "provide information about 'WHAT' happened". "It's too early for definite conclusions," he said, emphasising the investigation is ongoing and the final report will identify "root causes and recommendations". He also pledged to share updates on "technical or public interest matters" as they arise. Summing up, Pruchnicki said the probe "boils down to two possibilities — either deliberate action or confusion, or an automation-related issue". "The report doesn't rush to blame human error or intent; there's no proof it was done intentionally," he added. In other words, no smoking gun - just an uneasy wait for answers that may never even fully emerge. — BBC
