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2 passengers had fake passports on ill-fated Dubai-Mangalore flight

The police had lodged an official complaint with the passport office of Kerala and Mumbai.

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Two passengers were travelling on fake passports aboard the ill-fated Air India Express Dubai-Mangalore flight IX-812 that killed 158 passengers on May 22 after crash landing at the Bajpe airport in Mangalore, the court of inquiry looking into the crash has been told.

Chief of the district crime investigation bureau Venkatesh Prasanna, who deposed before the court in Mangalore on Thursday, said Abdul Samad of Kochipalli of Kannur district in Kerala, had travelled with a passport (number: F 0606599) that originally belonged to Shanavas Vellarathangal of Arakkinar village in Kozhikode district of Kerala, and Mohammad Ashfaq travelled with a passport (number: F 36468093), belonging to Gonzales Marion Ignatius of Vikhroli (West), Mumbai. Both of them perished in the crash, he said.

The police had lodged an official complaint with the passport office of Kerala and Mumbai. Prasanna said 11 other passengers were also reported to have had fake passport but their passports had been destroyed and their bodies had been charred
beyond recognition in the crash. Twelve bodies from the crash site were unclaimed and were buried in Mangalore.

In another violation onboard the plane, a passenger, whose name was 43rd on the passengers’ list, had made a call from his cellphone with an international Sim card just 30 minutes before the plane landed at Mangalore. The passenger has been identified as Arun Kumar Shetty, an hotelier who had called his brother Kiran

Kumar Shetty at Noojadi in Kundapur. He deposed before the court that aviation experts do object to the use of mobile phones onboard as they interfered with the onboard instrumentation and sometimes showed wrong readings. The court has made a note of this information.

Later former air marshal B Neelkanth Gokhale, who head the court of inquiry, told reporters that the matter was serious and the court would consult aviation experts in Delhi on this aspect.
The court has expressed dismay at the delay in getting the report of chemical and toxicology tests of the viscera of the pilot in command Capt Glusica and his co-pilot Capt Ahluwalia from the state forensic laboratory. It has directed the investigating officer, Valentine D’Souza, to seek the help of higher officials in getting the report within this week and produce it before the court. When the investigating officer told the court that it will take one more month to get the report, Gokhale said, “We cannot wait any further than a maximum of one week as my report should be ready by the last week of September.”

The court has appreciated the role of Air India Angels - a crisis response group in helping the families of the victims and survivors of the air crash. It has directed the Air India Express to prepare a case study document for the use of the airline industry.

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