Instant death came upon Ravi Subramanian, a technician of Air India, who was sucked into the engine of an A-319 jet at Mumbai Airport. The Hyderabad-bound jet was backing away from the gate on Wednesday night at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport when the incident happened.
The instant death brings to public attention again the safety record of Air India which is owned by the Indian government.
According to an airline safety study released by the Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Center, Air India is in 58th place, one spot lower than Malaysia Airlines which is still searching for the MH371 until now. After Air India are China Airlines and Lion Air of Indonesia.
The New York Daily News reports that the victim was overseeing a tow van that was nudging the jet away from the gate. The auxiliary power unit (APU) of the airplane was not working when the accident happened, which resulted in the body of Subramanian mutilated.
An Air India commander explains, "Most APUs on AI's narrow-body aircraft don't work. To start an engine, you have to crank the engine, rotate the engine fan." He continues, "If APU is not functional, (the) pilot starts one engine before push back, when the aircraft is in the bay, with the help of an external power source. Once the engine is started, the power source is disconnected, the aircraft is pushed back, then the live engine has to be revved up for the other engine to be started."
Following the fatal accident, India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation initiated a probe on the incident. Ashwani Lohani, managing director of Air India - who sent condolences to the family of Subramanian - will go to Mumbai on Thursday to investigate.