Pilot Who Flew Kamra And Goswami Questions Ban On The Comedian, Seeks Clarification From IndiGo
In a major development in the ongoing saga involving Kunal Kamra and news anchor Arnab Goswami, the pilot of the IndiGo flight onboard the spat took place has questioned the airline's decision to suspend the comedian from flying over his unruly behaviour.?
Captain Rohit Mateti who was the captain of the flight on Tuesday said in a mail to IndiaGo that ¡°while Kamra's behaviour was unsavory, it was NOT qualifying of a Level 1 Unruly passenger".?
"As Captain of 6E5317 BOM-LKO on 28.01.2020, I do not find the aforementioned events reportable in any way. My Kamra's behaviour while unsavoury was NOT qualifying of a Level 1 unruly passenger. Indeed we pilots can all attest to incidents similar and/ or worse in nature that were not deemed unruly," he said in the mail.?
In the letter, the captain also stated that Kamra had apologized to the crew and to him personally for his conduct.?
He also said that he was ¡°disheartened to learn that my airline took decision solely on the basis of social media posts, with no consultation with the pilot-in-command.""This is somewhat unprecedented in my 9 years of airline flying,¡± he wrote further asking that ¡°Am I to understand that the bar for interpretation of a disruptive passenger is lower/different when it comes to high profile cases?¡±.
After the letter was widely circulated on social media IndiGo said that ¡°We have received the relevant statements and the internal committee has initiated the investigation regarding this incident.¡±?
This is a massive embarrassment to IndiGo which jumped into banning Kamra for six months even before the internal probe was concluded.?
As per the DGCA's Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR), the pilot-in-command should file the complaint with the airline and subsequently, an internal probe committee will examine the same. During the probe, the airline can ban the passenger for a maximum of 30 days.?
Following the IndiGo ban Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had 'advised' other airlines to ban Kamra from flying. Air India, SpiceJet, and GoAir were happy to follow the minister's advice and ban Kamra from flying with them until further notice.?
It all began after Kamra posted on Twitter on Tuesday in which he was seen calling Goswami a ¡°coward¡±.?
Kamra also told Goswami that he was doing it for the mother of Rohith Vemula, whose caste was dragged into the discussion following the suicide of Vemula who was a PhD student at Hyderabad Central University.??
