Air India pee-gate: 'Don't make crew members, captain a scapegoat', veteran pilots tell Air India

After Air India issued a show-cause notice and de-rostered four cabin crew and a pilot in the case of an unruly male passenger onboard a New York-Delhi flight, a section of serving and retired pilots has strongly criticised the act.

On Saturday, Tata-owned Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said that the airline has issued a show-cause notice to four cabin crew and a pilot in the case where a passenger urinated on a fellow elderly woman on a flight from New York in November. Wilson, while apologising for the unfortunate event, said the five employees have been de-rostered for further investigation.

In a statement, Wilson, who is also the managing director of Air India, said Air India is deeply concerned about the in-flight instances where customers have suffered due to the condemnable acts of their co-passengers on our aircraft AI102 operating between New York and Delhi on 26 November 2022.

"Four cabin crew and one pilot have been issued show cause notices and de-rostered pending investigation. Internal investigations into whether there were lapses by other staff are ongoing on aspects including the service of alcohol on the flight, incident handling, complaint registration on board, and grievance handling," said Air India CEO Campbell Wilson in the statement.

However, Wilson, in his statement, didn't specify any reason for taking action against all five of them. This further led to several pilots believing that the move of de-rostering is unfair and an attempt to avoid embarrassment.

"According to the laid down procedure, after every flight, the cabin crew in charge fills out a report of what happened in the cabin during the flight. It is read and counter-signed by the captain," Captain S S Panesar, ex-pilot and former director of flight safety and training of erstwhile Indian Airline, told PTI.

"If the cabin crew department and Air India did not read or react promptly to the report, how can they blame the captain now? De-rostering and giving the captain a show cause notice is absolutely unfair and ridiculous," Captain Panesar added.

He strongly believes that Air India is making the crew members and the captain a scapegoat just to avoid embarrassment and their own fault.

Meanwhile, Captain Ajay Ahlawat, an air force veteran, told PTI, "The management was made aware of the incident by the crew via a written report on landing. The management could have asked for more details if the report was not clear. Instead, the airline tried to bury the issue by negotiating with passengers concerned."

Captain Amit Singh, the founder of an NGO called Safety Matters Foundation, stated that the root cause is the prevailing poor safety culture in the airline. "While the crew may be held responsible if the incident was not reported but the management is culpable if the reports were submitted," he added.

All of this comes as a drunk man reportedly urinated on a 70-year-old female passenger in the business class of a New York-Delhi Air India flight. The incident took place on November 26 on Air India flight AI 102.

The accused in the case, Shankar Mishra, was arrested on Friday night and brought to Delhi. Patiala Court in Delhi sent him to judicial custody for 14 days, saying no police custody was required for further investigation.

(With PTI inputs)

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