Air India technician's death: Panel to probe Mumbai airport mishap

New Delhi: Expressing grief over the death of an Air India technician at Mumbai airport, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma on Thursday said that a committee has been set up under the Air India CMD to look into the incident.

Sharma also said that an ex-gratia amount of Rs 5 lakh has been granted to the victim's family. "It is very sad. We have lost a young engineer. A committee has been set up to investigate the incident and it has already started the probe," said Sharma.

The committee, comprising Air India chairman and managing director Ashwani Lohani and senior DGCA officials, has already reached Mumbai, he added.

The minister said that the committee will investigate all issues related to the freak accident last evening in which Ravi Subramanian got sucked into the engine of an Air India aircraft during push back at the Mumbai airport.

He, however, refused to elaborate further, saying that "it will be too premature to comment until the findings of the probe are out".

The mishap occurred when the co-pilot of Mumbai-Hyderabad flight 619 mistook a signal for starting the engine and Subramanian, who was standing close, got sucked into it at bay 28 of the Chhatrapati Shivaji domestic airport around 8:40 pm.