These revelations were made by AAIB in its recently released preliminary reports into these two accidents. The SD card works as the “black box” in single-engine aircraft like Tecnam.
The flying school, run by the kin of a former DGCA director, flying training, had leased some of its aircraft from a company run by the kin of Anil Gill, current DGCA director, flying training. Gill was suspended on Wednesday over alleged graft charges, chief among which was that his kin’s company bought training aircraft at a nominal price from FTOs (flying training organisations).
Red Bird had five accidents in a span of six months, following which the DGCA suspended its flying training activities last month. The AAIB preliminary report on the October 19 accident said the probe team did not find the SD card in the aircraft. “On enquiry it was informed that the SD cards were removed by Red Bird. No such instruction was issued by the AAIB or the DGCA team that was on the site.” Red Bird eventually gave the investigating team one SD card.
Complete flight data involving the accident and parameters related to engine performance were not present in the data files. In the second case, the AAIB report said the SD card data files showed data was modified between 8.30 am and 8.50 am. The accident had occurred around 6.45 am.
Tampering of evidence is a punishable offence under Section 204 of the IPC.