Technically the pilot did her job.
The whole situation was out of control Because the Captain, who had exceeded her flight duty time soon after landing, allegedly told the passengers that they would have to travel to Kochi on their own. The fracas then followed eventually culminated in the Captain telling the ATC over R/T that there was a hijack like situation aboard, though the transponder button She had pressed was 7700 indicator of ‘Emergency’.
The Anti-Hijacking Act, 1982 (65 OF 1982), clearly indicts the Captain who deliberately told the ATC man that the situation was hijack like.
This is howthe Act defines a Hijack(Chapter II -3):
Whoever on board an aircraft in flight,unlawfully, by force or threat of force or by any other form of intimidation,seizes or exercises control of that aircraft, commits the offence of hijackingof such aircraft.
That means, only an aircraft in flight can be hijacked.
And what isa flight?
See the next paragraph of the Act:
“an aircraft shall be deemed to be in flightat any time from the moment when all its external doors are closed followingembarkation until the moment when any such door is opened for disembarkation..”
According to airport officials, some of the aircraft’s passengers also alighted the aircraft and stood around it while waiting for the flight to take off.So the doors of the plane were opened already for disembarkation.
A ceased flight and a nonexistent hijacking. So there never was a case against the six passengers the Pilot named in her complaint. And there never was any need for the Police to question them.
And the ATC people also can never be blamed. Because the Commander of the aircraft had uttered the word hijack while talking with them over R/T, they had absolutely no choice but to initiate all the actions assuming that the aircraft had already been hijacked (Directive 36.7.2 Operations Manual of AICL, Issue 1, 24.04.2012) –even if they had seen from the tower that the doors of the craft already wereo pened and some passengers had disembarked.
If therestill is a case, it ought to be charged against only one person- The PIC of AirIndia Express flight 4422.
By tolerating unruly behavior we are welcoming rowdiness into Aviation. Do we
want that to happen
?
You cannot askthe Best people in the world to Fly.. Nor you can be selective on passengers...There will be all class people travelling on Board. Its the Management ability that counts.. Rather than aggrevating the situation if they have managed to
arrange some refreshments or Travel Arrangements will this incident have escalated...???
Then the otherside of the above is "will these passengers do the same thing if they are flying from Kochi-Abudhabi rather than Abudhabi-kochi...? Never they will dare to do because of the laws in UAE..... so Its the Indian Nature to become Paper Tigers when they are in Homeland.....
But again my absolute feeling is Capt Rupali with an experience of more than 15Years should have handled the situation with much more maturity. Please dont be offended to the views.. Its what I feel to share.
Last edited by blackbirdsr72; 24th Oct 2012 at 14:29.