Removed from flight duties

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, OCT. 6. Three days after the hijack drama involving an Alliance Air flight from Mumbai to New Delhi, Alliance Air has decided to act against the entire crew of the flight by opting for ``not utilising'' their services.

Even as there has been speculation that heads will roll in view of the embarrassment faced by the Government when it turned out that there was no hijack attempt, the management chose not to suspend formally the crew members and simply said that their services were not going to be used. The crew included the commander, co-pilot and four air hostesses.

From the announcement it was clear that the action has been taken pending a high-level inquiry into the incident being conducted by a committee headed by the Mr. S. B. Mahapatra, Special Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs. The committee will examine in totality the situation arising out of the chain of events triggered by the specific incident regarding the hijack of the Alliance Air flight CD-7444.

Though the Government justified its response saying that there was a specific threat, it said the correctness or otherwise of the communication given to the commander, or for that matter the decision of the commander to activate the hijack signal, were definitely matters for detailed scrutiny as well as inquiry.

Viewed in the background of the overall security environment, the Civil Aviation Ministry said, ``the threat was rather specific and all laid-down precautions had to be taken within the very short period available in such contingencies.

``In any case, once the commander of the aircraft activates the hijack signal all other things like convening of Central Committee and CMG and observing a state of highest alertness have to be followed,'' the Government said.

Referring to security perceptions world over, the Government said the safe conduct of civil aviation operation in India as also in other parts of the world had undergone a quantum change after the incidents at Colombo and in the U.S.

The Ministry said, ``unless each and every such call is thoroughly analysed, collated and taken to its logical conclusion it is difficult to differentiate between the non- specific and specific threats''.

In any case, in terms of detailed procedures laid down for such eventualities in India and other parts of the world which have been refined by each country, it was a case of specific threat and as such had to be responded to the way it was done.

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