Ahmedabad: Almost 10 months after a London-bound Air India flight crashed within seconds of taking off from Ahmedabad airport, killing 260 persons, there is still not a sense of closure for families of the victims.
Around 30 bereaved families from across Gujarat met in Ahmedabad on Saturday, and decided to write a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting that the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and black box (flight data recorder) data be released so that the truth behind the tragedy is known to all.
“We want to know the truth about what caused the crash and whether there was any technical problem,” they demanded, according to a PTI report.
The letter, copies of which were sent to the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, stated that if the black box data cannot be made public, it should at least be shared with the victims’ families privately.
“My home feels empty now. No amount of compensation can fill this void. We don’t want money, we just want to know what happened,” said Nilesh Purohit, who lost his 24-year-old son in the crash.
Some are pained by a lack of institutional support.
Valsad’s Kinjal Patel, who lost her mother, said it was difficult to use the website created by Air India recently to help families recover victims’ belongings.
“There are over 25,000 items listed, but the images are unclear. It’s almost impossible to find anything,” she said.
Many voiced concerns over the lack of accessible communication channels. For instance Romin Vora, who lost his mother, brother and daughter, expressed the helplessness of families not very familiar with digital tools.
“There is only one email ID, and responses take up to 15 days. Many people in villages don’t even know how to use email,” he said.
Vora was also not comfortable with the idea of personal belongings being publicly displayed on the portal, calling it insensitive.
Air India has not yet responded to the demand of crash victims’ families.
AAIB, which had submitted its preliminary probe report on the crash in July, is likely to present the final report in June, around the first anniversary of the tragedy.
