Airline officials say they do not agree with Indian police’s finding that two of the passengers killed on the ill-fated Air India Express flight that crashed in Mangalore were travelling on fake passports.
The Dubai-Mangalore flight IX-812 that crashed on May 22 at the Bajpe airport in Mangalore killed 158 passengers.
The court of enquiry looking into the crash has been told that two of the passengers were indeed travelling on fake passports.
A senior official from Dubai told Emirates 24|7: “I do not agree with the finding. However, it is not for the airline to find out if the passports were original or fake. It is for the immigration and the issuing authority,” said Air India's regional manager in the UAE Abhay Pathak.
The Dubai General Department for Residency and Foreigners Affairs has already clarified that no passengers on the flight was travelling with fake documents.
Meanwhile, airline officials in India are reported to have clarified that all passports were properly examined and authenticated at the Indian Embassy in Dubai before compensation was given to the families of the dead.
Indian investigating officials on Thursday disclosed before a court of enquiry that in Mangalore that 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.
According to the chief of the district crime investigation bureau in Mangalore Venkatesh Prasanna, 11 other passengers were also travelling on fake passports but their passports had been destroyed and their bodies charred beyond recognition.
According to reports 12 bodies from the crash site were unclaimed and were buried in Mangalore.
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