Did Air India Ignore Emergency Landings Amid Bomb Threats? Internal Messages With Republic

Air India Bomb Threats: Republic Media has accessed messages raising doubts whether Air India ignored bomb threats and refused emergency landings. This comes as various Indian air carriers have been receiving bomb threats in the past few days, triggering panic among authorities.

As the matter remains a high priority for the government authorities, Republic Media has accessed Air India team messages trail which has raised a doubt whether airline’s top boss asked his team to ignore bomb threats. Some of these threats were received when aircrafts were mid-air and some on the ground. Messages accessed by Republic indicate that the due protocol was not followed by the airline.

Republic Media has also sent a detailed questionnaire to Air India asking specific questions:

1. Is it true that Air India didn’t inform the DGCA about the threats? 
2. Is it true that they refused to carry out or failed to carry out DGCA mandated protocols when they were aware about threats?
3. Was there an internal decision taken by the Air India team to not inform the stake holders about the threats?  

The moment there is a bomb threat, as per the protocol, the plane makes an  emergency landing if it’s mid-air. In this particular case, we are being told that the due protocols were not followed.

In fact, some internal messages accessed by Republic Media indicate that a top boss of Air India actually instructed his team saying ignore these messages, particularly keeping in mind that Air India over the past 6 months have been receiving bomb threats.

This raises a question whether the airline, somewhere down the line, ignored these threats and decided to ahead with internal checks itself.

The recent developments indicate that the rules were completely flouted by the COO of Air India and that two major aviation regulators including the DGCA (Director General of Civil Aviation) and BCAS (Bureau of Civil Aviation Security) were kept in dark for the past 24-48 hours.

When Republic tried to approach the aviation regulators, they were completely unaware that the SOPs were not being followed. They were unaware that since morning — October 17 — 7 Air India Express and 5 Air India planes have received bomb threats.

The BCAS DG also stated mentioning that the SOPs were being flouted and assured to look into the matter. 

Let us also mention that on Wednesday also, several Air India flights emergency landings were not done, indicating whether the airline kept the commercial aspect above the security of passengers.

Republic Media is awaiting a response from Air India on questions sent to the airline asking whether it ignored mandate protocols amid bomb threats.