‘AAIB is unbiased’: Civil Aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu on AI-171 crash report

Union minister of civil aviation Ram Mohan Naidu on Monday said the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, the agency probing the fatal crash of a London-bound Air India flight in Ahmedabad, is “totally unbiased”.

While responding to a question in Rajya Sabha during the monsoon session of Parliament, Naidu said this is the first time when the AAIB has taken a stand to decode a damaged black box, which includes the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, within the country.

“Whenever these incidents happen and if the black box gets damaged, it always came to the point where we were sending the black box outside to the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and getting it decoded from that manufacturer only. It was for the first time as a country that India took a stand that the black box, even if it was damaged, that the whole decoding process is going to happen in the country. AAIB has been successful in decoding the entire data which was available. AAIB took the data from two different things: the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder,” said Naidu.

The crash of Air India flight AI 171 killed all but one of the 242 people onboard and several others present in a medical college dorm in Ahmedabad, where the plane exploded.

Following the tragic crash, a formal investigation was initiated by the AAIB, in line with international protocols set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

“The AAIB got into the investigation process right after the incident. They have involved subject matter experts,” said Naidu.

Responding to widespread criticism of the AAIB’s preliminary report, Naidu said, “It is called the preliminary report because it can’t address all the questions that we have right now. What the AAIB has done through the preliminary report is to address what happened based on the facts it found on the CVR and FDR.”

“To come out with the suggestions, the exact cause of what happened... To have a definitive answer and future corrective measures, we have to look at the final report,” said Naidu.

Coming out strongly in support of the probe agency, Naidu said the AAIB has a thorough rule-based process. “They are totally unbiased and looking into the facts,” he stated.

“I have seen multiple articles not only in the Indian media but also in the Western media trying to promote their own viewpoint. We want to stand by the truth and not what is happening with the pilots or Boeing or Air India. We have to respect the process of investigation,” he said, adding that the truth is only going to come out once the final report has been placed.