Air India Express flight IX-247 had to return and make an emergency landing in Mumbai, India, on January 6th.
The Boeing 737-800 plane took off for Dubai, United Arab Emirates, but had to turn back due to a hydraulic failure.
The plane landed safely. All one hundred and seventy-seven passengers and six crew members remained unharmed.
Air India Express flight IX-611 had to make an emergency landing in Mumbai, India, on October 12th.
The Boeing 737-800 plane heading from Tiruchirappalli, India, to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, was diverted after the airport officials informed the crew that the plane may have impacted localizer antenna and wall during departure.
The plane landed uneventfully. All one hundred and thirty passengers and six crew members remained unharmed.
The plane sustained substantial damage.
Air-India Express flight IX-322 made an emergency landing in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on November 15th.
The plane heading from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to Calicut International Airport, Kerala, India, was diverted after a passenger complained of pain in his chest and vomited blood.
The plane landed safely.
The patient, Mohammed Salim, 35, was rushed to a hospital where he was later pronounced dead.
There are two accounts of the Pilot Alexander Glusicia’s situation prior to the Mangalore-Dubai-Mangalore flight. We wonder which of these versions is true.
1. Alexander (Zlatko) Glusica was initially not rostered by Air India to fly on the day of the crash— not scheduled to fly till May 23.. His schedule had last minute changes, when Glusica was asked to fly though he was fatigued, having just returned from a Serbian vacation.
2. Capt Glusica had landed in Mangalore two days in advance, and was plenty rested prior to flying.
Officials claim the family had opportunity to appear before the Court of Inquiry but they never came.
PILOT NOT ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED TO FLY
What: Air India Express Boeing 737-800 en route from Dubai to Mangalore
Where: Mangalore airport
When: 6:00 a.m May 22 2010
Who: Passengers include 23 children, 6 crew, 158 fatalities and 8 survivors
Air France continues that tradition by providing two anniversary memorial services for Air France Flight 447 victims, one in Rio de Janeiro for 100 participants, and one in Paris for 400 participants. Air France is providing transportation and facilities for the memorials and reunions.
The glass monument recalling the victims was placed in Leblon (Rio); it has 228 swallows etched into it, each representing someone who died aboard the flight.
Where is the monument to all the 152 victims, Airblue?
Where will you be holding the anniversary service on July 28?
As the homemade cardboard tribute says “Sympathy is no substitute for action.”
May 22, 2010
It has been a year since flight 812–the Air India Express Dubai-Mangalore flight that took on 166 passengers, and only delivered 8 of them alive. The rest died when the plane landed too far down the runway, and continued over the edge of a gorge. That leaves us 8 live victims who will forever remember the trauma; and 158 deceased victims who will not, but whose passing will forever leave a black hole of absence.
Lawsuits may talk of justice, and toss around terms like economic losses; Lawyers may talk about compensation; airlines and insurers may dangle various sums of money over the families heads. But nothing anyone will do will make these families right again.
The families have to suffer the loss of their loved ones from now through eternity. And to balance that, courts offer compensation. Instead of local laws protecting their citizens, in compensation cases, the required amount to pay for a decedent in some cases could be less than any treaty. A number is slapped on each victim, as if the numeric value is that person. And sometimes, because of the way values are computed, the numbers are insulting. They’re based on earning power–In the Mangalore crash, it is a mere 35 lakhs for a non-working woman. (Roughly 75,100, U.S.). An insulting lump sum to give for a life, when currently, every person who dies in an air crash on any international flight is (technically) entitled to a final compensation of $ 1,76,000 SDRs* according to the international guidelines, the Montreal Convention.
I want justice for the families, if there is such a thing. I want fair compensation, if there is such a thing. I want that compensation to provide an umbrella of coverage to be enough so they can at least be comfortable while their psyches have a chance to adjust. Even knowing that money does not staunch the wound, nor will it bring healing, (only time does that), I am still aware that it is a tangible something that we can do for the families who will have to go on, not only minus breadwinners, but minus joy.
These families have lost the light in their lives. There is no hundred watt lightbulb they can plug in that will chase the shadows; no incandescent or florescent fixture that can be switched on to bring normal back. In spite of whatever check that will be written, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children, spouses–all will still have disappeared into that black hole of absence. The families will have to learn to scrabble through, and hang on until they find a new normal. But if I have a chance to make their lives better, to help them find a settlement that will at least allow them to lead physically comfortable lives, I will. That is what I do.
I am a lucky man. I come home to an intact family, a wife and grown children; and we all have our lives to look back on and to look forward to, our holidays, like this recent Easter. Our lives to live, with no darkness, and with our joy intact. I tell myself that I appreciate what I have, that I appreciate everything that makes my life what it is, but it never feels as true as when I look at the calendar and see this day.
*Standard Drawing Rates-The SDR (Special Drawing Right) is an artificial “basket” currency used by the IMF (International Monetary Fund) for internal accounting purposes. The SDR is also used by some countries as a peg for their own currency, and is used as an international reserve asset.To calculate the value of the SDR in national currency (say, ABC), multiply the four exchange rates of the home country vis-à-vis the basket-currency countries (i.e., ABC/USD, ABC/EUR, ABC/JPY, and ABC/GBP) with the basket values indicated in the above table. Add these four numbers together to obtain the ABC/SDR exchange rate.
