Dummy grenade recovery: Govt to procure equipment to improve

In the wake of recovery of a dummy stun grenade on board an Air India plane, Civil Aviation Minister Pusapati Ashok Gajapathi Raju today directed procurment of additional equipment to improve security and called for frequent reviews to avoid repeat of such incidents.
The meeting chaired by the Minister was attended by senior officials from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, National Security Guard, Central Industrial Security Force and Air India.
The meeting also examined the findings of the inquiry conducted after the incident.
"It was decided to ensure that such incidents are not repeated by making the security inspections more effective, providing training to the staff, procuring additional equipment required and frequent reviews," a statement said here.

Counter-hijack force National Security Guard has already submitted a report to the Union Home Ministry giving details of the sequence of events that led to the surprise recovery of a dummy stun-grenade on board an Air India plane when it landed at Jeddah a few days back.
Sources said NSG has reported that its commando teams undertook a counter-hijack drill on the jumbo jet between September 24-27 and it followed the standard operating procedures before releasing the civil aircraft for regular duties.
However, after the operational drill, there seemed to have been an "oversight" by joint agencies involved in rendering the aircraft safe and rolling it out for regular passenger flying operations, they said.

The stun grenade, which had no explosive in it but had Border Security Force factory markings, was found on the upper deck business class of Boeing 747-400, which was operating flight AI-965 on Mumbai-Hyderabad-Jeddah route.