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Airport mishap: Escalator did not have safety sensors

Josy Joseph in New Delhi

Authorities continued to stonewall all queries on the freak accident at the Indira Gandhi International Airport on Monday in which an eight-year-old girl was killed after she got stuck in an escalator.

Senior Airports Authority of India officials said an internal inquiry had been ordered and the report would be submitted by this evening. Two officials of the National Airports Division of the AAI are conducting the inquiry.

As details of the accident emerge, it is becoming clear that there were glaring shortcomings in the maintenance of the escalator and the airport's emergency services.

Inquiries made by rediff.com revealed that the escalator did not have mandatory sensors capable of switching it off if something got stuck in it. AAI officials could not confirm if there were sensors installed in the escalator.

Reports also point out that the screws of some metal sheets on the escalator's footboard were left unscrewed by maintenance staff because it made routine maintenance easier.

At about 0300 IST on Monday, a bag belonging to a passenger of the Air-India flight from Dubai got stuck at the far end of the escalator. As the passenger tried to pull the strap out and some passengers crowded around to help him, eight-year-old Jyotsana Jethani tumbled and fell headlong into the gap that was left open by the attempts to pull the bag out.

The girl remained stuck in the escalator for almost half-an-hour before it was switched off. None of the airport's attendants, including the on-duty policemen, had any idea how to switch the escalator off.

The girl's uncle, Rajesh, for whose marriage she was travelling to Jodhpur with her grandfather, tried to pull the girl out and in the process received a deep gash on his head. Another woman, Usha Rani, got stuck in the escalator in the melee and injured her leg.

Medical assistance, some witnesses said, reached the spot almost half an hour after the incident.

The escalator was installed by Otis-India, but AAI engineers were responsible for its daily maintenance. Otis engineers had last inspected the escalator on November 25.

Jyotsana's grandfather Parmanand Jethani has vowed to take the authorities concerned to court. He pointed out on Monday at the Safdarjung hospital, where Jyotsana's post-mortem was carried out, that there was no attendant next to the escalator to switch it off and neither was any first aid available. "I will definitely take them to court for this negligence," he said.

Danish Nagpal, whose mother Usha Rai was hurt in the mishap, is also preparing to move court. He pointed out that the staff at the immigration counter continued with their work even as passengers tried to save the girl.

The Otis Elevator Company (India) claimed today that all safety mechanisms in the escalator were in place. A company official said: "Never has such an accident taken place in our history in this country."

The company has rushed a team of experts to Delhi to study the accident. The company maintained that the escalator had gone through the mandatory maintenance on November 25, but did not rule out the possibility of something having gone wrong after that.

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