Patel: Air India ops, including maintenance, need fine-tuning

Former civil aviation minister Praful Patel has called on the Tata Group to fine-tune key aspects of Air India's operations, a day after the airline's Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft with 242 people onboard crashed shortly after takeoff in Ahmedabad.

- Yogesh Naik

MUMBAI:

At least 265 people have been confirmed dead as of Friday, including students at a medical college's hostel and others in a residential area near the Ahmedabad airport where the plane went down.

"After three-and-a-half years of the takeover of Air India by the Tatas, the management needs to fine-tune various aspects of running a world-class airline, including maintenance," Patel told reporters at the Nationalist Congress Party's office in Mumbai on Friday. The 68-year-old was the civil aviation minister in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government when Boeing introduced the Dreamliners in 2011.