New Delhi: A senior CISF officer has penned a first-hand account of the Air India flight AI-171 crash that claimed 260 lives on June 12 last year. The Chief Airport Security Officer (CASO) at Ahmedabad airport, Apoorv Pandey, recounts how the CISF unit became the immediate first responder, mobilising over 200 personnel within 12 minutes, rescuing over 50 people, and transferring the injured to hospitals.
The CISF's quick action was instrumental in saving many lives, with personnel using makeshift measures such as sarees and broken wires for crowd control. The airport simultaneously went into a full-scale terror alert, with authorities unable to rule out sabotage or terrorism.
Pandey highlights the importance of comprehensive SOPs, regular mock drills, and joint workshops between agencies to improve medical response, fire safety, and overall disaster management at airports.
The CISF's swift 12-minute mobilisation and seamless inter-agency cooperation served as a testament to how operational preparedness directly translates into saving human lives.
