AAIB totally unbiased, conducting rule-based probe into AI plane crash: Naidu

The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is "totally unbiased" and carrying out a definitive and thorough rule-based probe to find out what exactly led to the Air India plane crash that killed 260 people last month, civil aviation minister K. Rammohan Naidu said in Rajya Sabha on Monday.

Ten days after the AAIB came out with its initial probe into the fatal crash, Naidu said the investigation process is being carried out as per international norms and assured the Upper House of Parliament that the country has a very robust aviation safety mechanism.

"We want to stand by the truth. We want to find out what exactly happened and that is only going to be coming out once the final report (of AAIB) is placed. We have to respect the process of investigation and once that process has happened, then we can talk about what happened, how it happened and then corrective measures (can be taken)," Naidu said.

Amid speculations over the possible role of pilots in the accident, Naidu said the AAIB's preliminary report talks about only what has happened based on the facts in the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder.

"I can say this in the House and to the people of the country that the AAIB has a very definitive and thorough rule-based process. They are very transparently looking at the (investigation) process right now and they are totally unbiased," the minister said, while responding to supplementaries.

On 12 June, Air India's Boeing 787-8 aircraft enroute from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick crashed into a building soon after take off, killing 260 people, including 19 people on the ground. Of the 242 people on board, only one passenger survived.

Naidu said there have been multiple reports not only in India but also in Western media, trying to air their own viewpoints and narratives but "I want to tell you that the way we are seeing the investigation is through the facts. We want to stand by the truth and not what is happening with the pilots, Boeing, Air India or any other stakeholder".

The civil aviation minister also emphasised that definitive answers and future corrective measures can only be made after the AAIB final report is ready.

On 12 July, the AAIB released its preliminary report into the fatal crash. On 17 July, AAIB said it was too early to draw any "definite conclusions" on what led to the Air India plane crash, as the probe is still on and that the final report will come out with the root causes, while it urged everyone to refrain from spreading premature narratives.

Noting that the AAIB has been successful in decoding the data from the black boxes of the crashed plane, Naidu said this is for the first time that India decided to decode the black boxes within the country and "we have done it successfully".

Highlighting the growth of the country's aviation sector, the minister said there are around 3,500 flight departures and about 5 lakh passengers are travelling by air daily. "We want things to be brought down to zero in terms of (aviation) incidents. That is the target we have".

There are more than 160 airports in the country.

In response to queries regarding manpower shortage at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Naidu said recruitment and creation of posts is a continuous process, adding that 103 positions were filled at the regulator last year. "We plan to recruit for 190 positions (at DGCA) by the end of October this year," he said.