NEW DELHI: Cash-strapped Air India ’s purchase of Boeing 777 aircraft pushed it into such a state of financial unviability that within five years, the airline had to sell its aircraft to Etihad at one-fifth the original price, former Comptroller & Auditor General Vinod Rai told TOI in an exclusive interview on Friday.Rai said that Air India was pushed to purchase these aircraft by the then civil aviation minister, Praful Patel, who wanted the airline to have direct flights from India to the US and Canada. The upshot of this was virtually crippling for AI. “When any purchase has a debt proportion of 97%, there’s no way it can be commercially profitable. Within five years of the 777s purchased by AI, they had to be sold to Etihad at five for the price of one. We bought one aircraft at one price and sold it at one-fifth of that price,” said Rai.He said the finance ministry termed the decision to buy aircraft as a “supply-driven proposal”. Rai also spoke in detail about how three Congress MPs pressured him to omit Manmohan Singh’s name from the CAG report, on the favorable terms given to Reliance in KG Basin gas award and much else.