Suspense Crime, Digital Desk : Whether the reports filtering out until now about the Air India Boeing plane crashing after just 39 seconds from takeoff turn out to be true will be revealed by the investigating agencies’ final report in the days to come, but lawyer for the victims, Mike Andrews, has totally denied all the claims made by the AAIB and Boeing until now. His own personal inquiry suggests a defect in the pre-existing fault, and from the signs of the crash of the plane, Andrews believes it is the electrical system defect that caused the plane crash. 241 passengers and 19 others lost their lives in the crash of AI-171 from Ahmedabad to London. Mike Andrews, Partner and Attorney of the USA based law firm Beasley Allen Law Firm which represents families of the 150 Americans and British who lost their lives in the tragedy and is fighting the case in America, alleges that a suicide narrative was peddled following the crash, but the plane appears to have crashed due to technical defect.Argument on the video of the crashAccording to the video and photos of the crash, before the plane flew off the runway, the RAT seemed to be operational and was operating, that is the fact crucial to the crash where in a fault with the fuel switch caused the premature operation of the RAT, unlike what the interim report says where in they state that the plane gave warning signals even before it taxied off the runway, in fact, reports say that the transponder of the plane failed, then worked again.The law firm absolutely rejects the claim of the pilot’s suicide that is mentioned in the interim report; the firm also states that there was some technical flaw prior to the crash of the unfortunate plane and the electrical panel of the aircraft was repaired once earlier and possibly the circuitry could have been affected due to a leakage of water.What does Mike Andrews have to say?According to Mike Andrews, a combination of the activation of the RAT while on the runway, a faulty signal while at the gate, a failure of the transponder while taxiing to the runway, all point to a system/electrical failure. The lawyers for the victims say that there are various theories about the fuel switch being off after the plane crashed, but the incident occurred much earlier.The law firm, through testing with flight simulators, argues that the takeoff was significantly longer or slower than expected from the flight simulator data; this is usually caused by either brake drag or reduced thrust and normally takes 14 to 18 seconds, but according to the timing from the preliminary report, the RAT had been deployed seconds before the plane was rotated. Both the slow takeoff and the early deployment of the RAT is evidence of an electrical failure rather than a piloting error. The law firm states that the final or interim AAIB report should be submitted at least one year after the accident as that is how long aircraft accident reports need to be published, hence the earliest date should be around June 12. The Americans and British authorities have not given any information on the crash to the victims, resulting in their frustration and inability to obtain any information.Report should not be made public because of safety-FIPCaptain CS Randhawa, President Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) is scheduled to address a media meet in Ahmedabad on Thursday on the first anniversary of the crash and speak on various lessons learned from crashes, investigation into the crash of the Boeing 171, standards of safety in civil aviation and accountability in case of air accidents. An earlier letter was sent to the Prime Minister, the Civil Aviation Ministry, etc., with a request to stop the AAIB from releasing any report of the crash of the plane which took off from Ahmedabad, because of safety and security of the plane and its passengers.International and domestic agencies in the investigation:The team investigating consists of representatives from India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), UK’s Accident Investigation Branch (AIB), US's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), DGCA India, manufacturer of the aircraft Boeing, manufacturer of the engine GE Aerospace, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited for space technical member, Indian Air Force for technical member and black box transport and aviation medicine experts and Air Traffic Controllers.
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