A five-member team is probing the fatal crash of the Air India aircraft last month in Ahmedabad that killed 260 people.
Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) director Sanjay Kumar Singh (56) is the investigator-in-charge and deputy director Jasbir Singh Larhga is the chief investigator.
The AAIB on Friday published its preliminary report on the fatal plane crash. In its 15-page report, AAIB said the wreckage site activities, including drone photography/videography, have been completed and the wreckage has been moved to a secure area near the airport.
Experienced pilots, engineers, aviation medicine specialists, aviation psychologists and flight recorder specialists have been taken on board as subject matter experts to assist in the investigation in the area of their domain expertise, according to AAIB.
AAIB director general GVG Yugandhar appointed the five-member team to investigate the crash that happened on June 12. The team comprises Sanjay Kumar Singh as Investigator-in-Charge, Jasbir Singh Larhga as Chief Investigator and Vipin Venu Varakoth, Veeraragavan K, and Vaishnav Vijayakumar as investigators, according to the AAIB preliminary report released on Saturday.
Here is a brief profile of the investigators:
Sanjay Kumar Singh
A director at AAIB, Singh has 15 years of experience in aircraft accident investigation and safety domain.
He has been involved in management of investigation into 15 accidents/serious incidents, and processed classification of more than 300 occurrences reported. He has a bachelor’s degree in (Mechanical Engineering) Aeronautical Engineering Specialisation, and an MBA degree.
He has over two-and-a-half decades of experience in consulting, advisory and operation roles within Air Force machinery assets, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Jasbir Singh Larhga
With AAIB for a decade, Larhga has been involved in various aircraft accident investigations, including the plane crash in Kozhikode in 2020. He has worked with DGCA as well as with Pawan Hans and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.
At AAIB, and during his stint at the DGCA, he has been associated with several aircraft accident/serious incident probes, including the Kozhikode Air India Express aircraft accident in 2020, skidding off the erstwhile Jet Airways plane at Goa airport in 2016, and skidding off an Air India Express aircraft from Dubai at the taxiway at Mangalore Airport in 2019.
A former DGCA official said Larhga was an efficient and hard working person during his stint at the regulator.
Vipin Venu Varakoth
Varakoth is an assistant director of Air Safety at DGCA based in Mumbai for more than seven years. He had also served as Air Safety Officer for nearly seven years, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Veeraragavan K
He is an assistant director of Air Safety at DGCA in Mumbai for nearly four years now. Prior to this role, he served as an Air Safety Officer in the national capital for nine years.
Veeraragavan has also worked as an analysis engineer with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for a little over a year in Chennai, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Vaishnav Vijayakumar
He is an Air Safety Officer at the DGCA and has been part of various aircraft accident/incident investigations.
