An Air India technician has died after being sucked into the engine of an aircraft parked at the Mumbai airport.
The tragic accident occurred when the co-pilot of Mumbai-Hyderabad flight AI 619 mistook a signal from ground crew for starting the engine and the victim, Ravi Subramanian, got sucked into it at bay 28 of the Chhatrapati Shivaji domestic airport around 8.40pm last night.
Speaking to the Hindustan Times Air India CMD Ashwani Lohani said:
An Air India technician died in a mishap during pushback of flight AI 619; the incident is being investigated. We are deeply saddened and regret the tragic incident at Mumbai airport.
Minister of State for Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma told the Economic Times that a committee has been set up under the Air India CMD to look into the incident.
He said:
It is very sad. We have lost a young engineer. A committee has been set up to investigate the incident and it has already started the probe.
Authorities claim they are clueless on how this person was near the aircraft, and say they hope that an inquiry will establish whose negligence it was and whether the engine should have been switched on at that time.
According to an unnamed source, the local police and other authorities have launched their own independent investigations into the case and officials from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) are also looking into the incident.
A similar incident occurred in the late 1990s in Chennai when a bird-scarer was sucked into a jet engine when he approached the plane while it was preparing for take-off.
