Tirupati airport officials stake passengers lives,suspended

Tirupati, Feb 5: Two Tirupati officials were suspended by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for putting the lives of 70 passengers who boarded an aircraft at stake.

Earlier, a fire man was made to replace an air traffic controller during the absence of the regular staff. The supervisior also failed to take action against the concerned staff.

AV Janardhanan, Deputy General Manager (Air Traffic Control) and Sandeep, Junior Executive (trainee) were also criticised for negligence of duty.

On Jan 9, Sandeep failed to report for duty in the morning at 7 am and two flights from Hyderabad were to land in an hour, Fireman M Basha was told to handle the radio transmitters in the ATC tower by Janardhanan. He then instructed technical details to Basha over the phone, who acted on behalf of Sandeep.

The fireman then instructed Jet Airways ATR-72 flight, which fortunately had a smooth landing. However, during the arrival of a SpiceJet plane, which carried 106 passengers another official took over the operations.

The issue was then reported to the AAI's Chennai office following which investigations began.

OneIndia News