The Court of Inquiry in the Mangalore air crash is yet to receive chemical analysis and toxicology reports of the viscera of the pilot and the co-pilot of the aircraft that crashed at the Mangalore airport on May 22.
According to the court, those reports are crucial for completing the investigation.
The court on Thursday asked Valentine D'Souza, Circle Inspector of the Bajpe police station, to keep in touch with the Regional Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) here regarding the progress being made in this regard.
Mr. D'Souza said that it might take another month to get the reports. The court observed that there was no proper arrangement at the Mangalore airport to remove disabled aircraft from the runway. A senior Air India official admitted that Air India was the designated agency to remove such aircraft from runways in Southeast Asia.
Mr. Gokhale instructed the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and Air India to prepare a basic plan to remove disabled aircraft from the runway. J.S. Rawat, Deputy Director-General of Civil Aviation, Delhi, told the court that of the 50 “safety observations” made during an inspection of the airport, 46 had been complied with.
The Mangalore airport had been exempted from strictly adhering to the four observations recorded by the DGCA.
Sharath Srinivas, Deputy Commissioner of Security (CA), Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, Delhi, told the court that the “possibility of sabotage with explosives is ruled out”. Director of the airport M.R. Vasudeva said all safety aspects had been taken care of at the airport. The runway-end safety area had been maintained as per the parameters fixed. Steps had been taken to construct a parallel taxiway for aircraft, he said.
