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Air India Gives New Meaning To “Cockpit”

THE GUARDIAN, CNN

 

 

 




Air India has grounded two of its pilots after a captain and first officer on one of its scheduled flights came to blows in the cockpit as they were preparing the passenger plane for departure from the Indian city of Jaipur to the country’s capital, New Delhi, on Sunday (April 5, 2015) night.

The first officer was irritated by his superior’s request to write down critical information for the flight, such as the number of passengers on board, takeoff weight and fuel uptake, the Times of India reported.

“The co-pilot took offence at this and reportedly beat up the captain,” the newspaper said. “In the larger interest of the airline, the commander decided to go ahead with the flight and flew to Delhi,” the paper added.

The Hindustan Times also said there had been a fight between the two, according to its sources.

The airline prefers to describe the incident as an ‘argument’.

“We have already de-rostered the two pilots pending an enquiry,” an Air India spokesman said.

India’s flag-ship airline, already teetering on the brink of bankruptcy since 2007, continues to be involved in a never-ending string of technical and other embarrassing debacles. 

In another alarming incident less than a year ago, for example, the Times of India reported that two flight attendants were in the cockpit on flight 133 from Bangkok to the Indian capital for almost an hour and were sitting in the pilot and co-pilot's seat.

The Times of India also reported that at some point during the overstay the plane's autopilot function was disengaged.

Air India suspended a pilot and two flight attendants after the incident.

"The inquiry confirmed the overstay of the cabin crew in the cockpit (and) administrative action was taken against them and the pilot. They have been suspended pending the final inquiry of the incident," the airline said.

"It never happens that two flight attendants are called inside the cockpit at the same time as happened on this flight. This is very strange," a senior commander was quoted by the Times of India.


[Courtesy: The Guardian, CNN. Edited for sikhchic.com]
April 7, 2015
 

Conversation about this article

1: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), April 07, 2015, 6:07 PM.

I once had to come to the rescue of a domestic airline representative at the Delhi Airport when she came to explain to the extremely irate passengers that our flight was delayed. She was surrounded by a huge crowd of men and they were about to manhandle her when I pushed into them, reached the poor young lady and loudly shouted to them to stop. Luckily they backed off and the young lady thanked me for what I had done.

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