After preliminary investigations, the crew of Air India’s A330 aircraft that operated from Delhi to Shanghai on July 5 have been grounded in connection with an incident of the aircraft encountering turbulence, which left two of the crew and 18 passengers injured.
The incident is being investigated by the Office of Director Air Safety (WR) in the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation. Data has been obtained from the Digital Flight Data Recorder to analyse the aircraft’s altitude when the incident occurred, an official spokesman said on Wednesday.
The aircraft was under the command of Captain S.P.S. Suri with Captain Rajesh Mirchandani as the first officer, when it faced turbulence owing to bad weather.
As per a report filed by the pilot, when the aircraft encountered mild turbulence, passengers and the cabin crew were told to be seated and strapped.
However, five minutes later, it ran into a severe turbulence. All galley items were thrown out.
The flight took off with 60 passengers and 11 crew members and was in Indian airspace when the incident occurred.
After the incident, the passengers tried to impress upon the crew and the pilot the need to land at the nearest airport, which is Kolkata, but that did not happen.
Furthermore, the pilot did not report the matter to either the airline or the DGCA, but just wrote that there was a little turbulence.
The pilot and the crew will remain grounded till the completion of the investigation