DGCA: A delay of 20 seconds and Rahul Gandhi’s plane would have crashed

Rahul Gandhi’s chartered plane on April 26, while he was enroute to Hubli had developed a technical snag and was only 20 seconds away from crashing. The DGCA had constituted a probe panel to probe the snag, after the Congress party claimed a conspiracy behind it.

According to Times Now report, which is based on the response to an RTI application filed by the group’s correspondent, the DGCA states that the crew of the chartered plane had responded a bit late to bring the flight under control after it developed a technical snag. The DGCA in its report mentions that the if the crew on aircraft in 20 more seconds, the plane with Congress President Rahul Gandhi would have crashed.

The report of the probe committee has not yet been made public, but in the reply to the RTI application, the central government had promised that the report would be made public soon. But, even after 49 days of the channel having got the reply, the DGCA report is yet to be made public.

According to the news report, the five major findings mentioned in the probe report of DGCA are:

• The chartered plane banked excessively on one side which may have resulted in a crash
• Aircraft was on auto-pilot mode when it developed a technical snag
• Aircraft had to be controlled manually & immediately by pilots
• The crew took a little time to bring the aircraft back to balance
• If snag wasn't corrected by crew within 20 seconds next, the plane could have likely crashed

In the meanwhile, Congress party has heavily criticised the BJP-led government for the delay in releasing the DGCA probe report. The delay in the report was a cause of concern, said the party.

The Congress said that the delay was “a cause of concern” and that the government should release the report in public immediately.

“The news about the near escape of Rahul Gandhi in the plane malfunction is extremely disturbing. The report should be made public so that it can be examined/ vetted by security and aviation experts to ascertain if it was a technical malfunction or something else,” tweeted Manish Tiwari.

Incident had occurred when the Congress President Gandhi was on the way to Hubli in Karnataka, to attend a rally for Karnataka Assembly polls.

“At around 10:45 am, the aircraft suddenly tilted heavily on the left side and the altitude dipped steeply, combined with violent shuddering of the aircraft body… The weather outside was sunny, normal and not windy… A clanking noise was clearly audible from one side of the plane throughout the shuddering of the aircraft body. It was also learnt that the autopilot of the aircraft was not functioning,” said the complaint filed by Kaushal Vidyarthee with police of Karnataka regarding the technical snag in the flight.

Congress President during a rally at Delhi’s Ram Lila Maidan had said that he thought it was “all over” for him when his plane dipped 8,000 feet. Soon after the incident, Rahul Gandhi had vowed to take up the fortnight-long Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage.