Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed grief at the loss of lives in the crash of a Border Security Force (BSF) aircraft in Delhi on Tuesday. Ten BSF personnel died in the accident.

“My thoughts are with the families of the deceased,” the Prime Minister tweeted.  

The Civil Aviation Ministry has started the process of setting up a committee of inquiry to probe the reasons for the crash. In a statement, Delhi International Airport Limited said all the 10 Border Security Force personnel on board a chartered aircraft, which crashed outside the boundary wall of the airport, were dead. The statement added that a “serious tragic incident” occurred outside the airport boundary wall involving a BSF aircraft. “The Ranchi bound chartered flight took off from Runway 28 of IGI Airport at 9:37 am and crashed within minutes outside the airport boundary wall. It was a Beech Superking B-200 aircraft,” the statement added. M Sathiyavathy, Directorate General of Civil Aviation, told BusinessLine that the aircraft’s airworthiness certificate was valid till April 2016.

Airworthiness

There had been some confusion over the airworthiness of the Beech Super King Air B-200 aircraft.

For, going by the website of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the aircraft should not have been in the air as it showed that the aircraft’s Certificate of Airworthiness (CofA) had expired on March 24, 2014 or almost 18 months ago.

Technically speaking, an aircraft that does not have a valid CofA should not be cleared to fly.

But clarity came with DGCA Sathyavathy saying that the website had not been updated due to some technical problems.

She also added that the aircraft certificate was valid till April 2016.

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