[fhdowntheline]

I would also call to question the operationalization of this whole Vande Bharat activity. What is the dire need to operate these flights in inclement weather? Its not a scheduled commercial flight in the normal scheme of things, more like a charter flight. And why did they have to squeeze out the timings during night hours in bad weather, with a scheduled departure back to Doha in the next morning with the same PIC ? Surely they could have waited for another day? Or is it just to satisfy the whims of the powers-that-be?

I think the government should ban all flights from table-top airports during nights and bad weather until sufficient infrastructure improvement is made in terms having extra length etc. Else they must severely curtail payload from these runways to ensure that TO/Landing distances are not endangered.

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

May be a bit OT, but I fail to understand why this airline (AIE) even came to being in the first place. What exactly did it do that parent AI couldn't do in the normal course of operations, other than some sort of international LCC operating model? Its accident/incident record is perhaps the worst of all the Indian carriers in the past 15 years or so.

If I may add to what others have already stated, the primary motive of setting up the AI Express airlines was to serve the Kerala (+ some flights from neighboring Southern States) to the Gulf market (+ some flights to SE Asia) which is extremely lucrative especially in the Summer months but at the same time extremely price sensitive. Back then, the Government of Kerala had planned start its own airline to serve this market (which was then mainly served by the airlines of the various Gulf countries) so I am assuming AIE was setup possibly as a compromise to prevent a state government owned airline. It should be noted that unlike AI, AIE actually returns a profit with aggressive cost-cutting being a likely factor and this is despite the fact that other low-cost carriers such as Indigo have entered market and the Gulf market itself has been shrinking with many Indian expats returning home due to shrinking economies and job localisation in many Gulf countries.

While AIE was turning a profit, almost everyone I know in the Gulf have a horror story to tell about the airline including an incident where the check-in staff at Muscat airport scammed a family friend of ours to 'pay for checking-in' despite having no luggage and then refused to provide a receipt (he had no choice other than to miss the flight as there was no time for escalation). There also has been multiple and recurring incidents where flights have been delayed for 16-24 hours with no hotel accomodation provided, these incidents have been documented in the Gulf editions of Malayalam channels like Asianet.

[TKMCE]

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

I would also call to question the operationalization of this whole Vande Bharat activity. What is the dire need to operate these flights in inclement weather? Its not a scheduled commercial flight in the normal scheme of things, more like a charter flight.

With all due respect you would not have been making this comment if you or your loved ones were stuck outside the country during lock down time in the initial months after Covid stuck. My mother died a couple of months before the CCJ accident happened, while I was abroad . I made it back to India , 22 days after that and because of quarantine which was 15 + 15 days and other travel restrictions, it was almost two months before I could visit her final resting place.

I made it home on an evacuation charter flight (not exactly Vande Bharat but similar in late June). . And no, it was not subsidized. I paid a high fare for it , but since I work in the industry , I do not question the rationale. And it RAINS in Kerala from June to the end of August. I do hope you are not suggesting, rains getting over was number one priority and bringing home people desperate to reach back could wait!

Flights to some countries could be operated only much later or much lesser numbers than required and UAE had a huge population of people stranded. This AIX flight was chock full... there were just 2 or 3 empty seats plus a few other seats required to be kept vacant because of regulations. Many were women and children returning home. They got priority. Of the 10 infants, 3 died, 3 others received serious injuries.

The accident happened because of pilot error . Plus the organisational culture of AIX played a big big part along with some other factors. I am half way through reading the full report page by page and it is shocking to read about the findings on how AIX is run. The airline has its registered office in Kochi, main maintenance base in Trivandrum, and Operations and Training base in Mumbai. However the operations head was based in Chennai and the training head was based out of Delhi despite the simulator and operations control being based in Mumbai. And the COO of Air India Express , did line flying with the parent AI as well . Delhi which had the least flights had the second highest number of commanders based there while Calicut which had the second highest number of flights had just ONE commander permanently based there. . In short, the horrible work culture in AIX was as much to blame as the poor airmanship of the pilot.

I am no stranger to accident reports, and not just Indian ones. I work in the industry but not in operations or engineering. Some of us hailing from Kerala were more than a little apprehensive whether we would end up with another "Tornado " type report (the Perumon rail disaster 30 years back). But FULL CREDIT to the investigators. These guys appear to have done a very thorough and professional job from what I have read till now, a report which compares well with some of the excellent work you come across from US NTSB and UK AAIB. These investigators deserve the credit for raising the standards.

[A350XWB]

Originally Posted by TSIboy

I don't know if its the right way to put it but with all due respect to him, we tend to put certain people on pedestals. We need to start seeing people as humans who can mistake rather than gods.

Bingo! Just read some of the articles that came out immediately after the accident.
Example

In Kozhikode too, he ensured the plane did not catch fire. Many more would have been dead otherwise.

He was made a hero and given a state funeral, even before there was any sort of investigation.
We fail to acknowledge that every human is bound to make mistakes and 22 years in IAF cannot prevent this. There is the classic example of Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten who proved that experience can sometimes make you over confident and cloud rational decision making.
It was because of pure luck that the fuel tank did not rupture at Kozhikkode. Otherwise, it'd have been another Mangalore.
Hierarchy is too prevalent in this part of the world and CRM is mostly namesake. It was almost a recap of the Mangalore accident and absolutely no lessons were learned from the previous accident. Sad

[corvus corax]

There is no point in discussing this any further. The report is out and I hope it brings some closure to the bereaved. I also hope that somebody learns something from this(which is highly unlikely).

[balenoed_]

Here is a picture from the report, for those who didn't go though the ~300 page pdf and those who were reluctant to get past the certificate expiry warning on the browser (ridiculous how a government website shows as unsafe ). Liked this picture, it sums it up:

Originally Posted by TKMCE

These guys appear to have done a very thorough and professional job from what I have read till now...These investigators deserve the credit for raising the standards.

True that. Really liked the simple language at most places and coming to the point without polishing the facts and by not pulling any punches. Kudos to the investigation team!

[theabstractmind]

I know it's easy to talk or type from the comforts of home, but whatever happened to "safety first"? Innumerous crash investigations have highlighted the over confidence of the Pilot as well as a less assertive co-pilot (based on my interest in Nat Geo series on Air Crash Investigations). So why is it just not imbibed in the pilots to put safety first? It's a question from a layman, not a criticism. A pilot on this forum could explain.

[no_fear]

One of my family friends is an ex IAF officer who joined Jet airways as a senior pilot. During his tenure with the airline, he was written up multiple times for infractions and grounded for failing to adhere to protocol. The key issue was as a decorated IAF pilot, he thought he knew it all and he wanted all his subordinates and juniors to accept his words as holy gospel. He is a rather intolerable fellow in social company so I can make a safe assumption that he was probably a nightmare to work with professionally. Thankfully he was forced to retire rather than continue flying. While he is exceptionally skilled, it was his demeanor and his attitude that he knew more than others and would not be challenged, that made him a poor civilian pilot.

I have heard anecdotes that a lot of ex air force pilots in India behave similarly. Maybe airlines should re-think their hiring strategies.

[govindremesh]

Originally Posted by TKMCE

Finally, the investigation report on the Air India Express crash at Kozhikode last year has been released in the public domain - the AAIB India website.

Here is the link.

https://aaib.gov.in/Reports/2020/acc...port%20AXH.pdf


From the report

****
3.2.1 PROBABLE CAUSE
The probable cause of the accident was the non adherence to SOP by the PF,
wherein, he continued an unstabilized approach and landed beyond the touchdown
zone, half way down the runway, in spite of ‘Go Around’ call by PM which warranted
a mandatory ‘Go Around’ and the failure of the PM to take over controls and execute
a ‘Go Around’.
****

A sad, sad accident.

The IX 814 incident was exactly the same- Table top runway, unstable approach, PF continuing to land despite PM calling out Go Around, failure of PM to take over controls despite the PF not responding to Go around calls.

Hasn't AIX learnt it's lessons and modified their training? Given this, I won't be flying AIX anytime in the near future.

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by TKMCE

The accident happened because of pilot error . Plus the organisational culture of AIX played a big big part along with some other factors. I am half way through reading the full report page by page and it is shocking to read about the findings on how AIX is run. The airline has its registered office in Kochi, main maintenance base in Trivandrum, and Operations and Training base in Mumbai. However the operations head was based in Chennai and the training head was based out of Delhi despite the simulator and operations control being based in Mumbai. And the COO of Air India Express , did line flying with the parent AI as well . Delhi which had the least flights had the second highest number of commanders based there while Calicut which had the second highest number of flights had just ONE commander permanently based there. . In short, the horrible work culture in AIX was as much to blame as the poor airmanship of the pilot.

Thank you for summing up the report and the work culture at AIX, it really does give an insight as to why AIX has the worst flight record in India. Emirates, Saudia and AI fly wide-body jets into airports in Kerala including during the monsoon but we haven't seen incidents with the kind of frequency seen with AIX. Apart from these international flights, these airports also handle multiple domestic flights by Indigo, Spicejet, Vistara, erstwhile Jet Airways etc. and none of these airlines have had a fatal crash while AIX has had two. It is also disheartening to see comments on social alluding to a cover-up due to infrastructure limitations because the CO is ex-military and hence is infallible in the minds of the public. It has been proven time and again that ex-military pilots are just as prone to accidents if not more according to some reports.

Originally Posted by govindremesh

Given this, I won't be flying AIX anytime in the near future.

That makes two of us.

[AirbusCapt]

A couple of points to ponder:
1) dgca all weather ops circular says a working windshield wiper is mandatory on P1 (captains side) during adverse weather. Why was the aircraft dispatched with an inop wiper? If nothing just swap the FO side wiper to the captains side and you are legal.
If the wiper failed enroute (identified during the first approach) the only thing to do is to go around and divert to the alternate. No monkey business of trying to hack a landing.

2) a go around call by either crew below 1000 feet is a mandatory go around, no questions asked. You go around, then decide to either come back for an approach or divert. It is erring on the side of caution.

3) the captain didn't heed to multiple calls from his FO, continued to land in tailwinds, with an inoperative wiper, floated on the runway and then tried to takeoff post deployment of spoilers. It was a classic replay of the Mangalore crash.

4) there appeared to be a complete degradation of CRM , almost a single pilot flight deck.

The classic decision making checklist for any failure is as follows:
1) is my aircraft safe?
2) safety of my pax, crew and cargo
3) aircraft limitations
4) company SOP and requirements
5) fuel saving
I guess the captain here directly went for point 4 and disregarded everything else.

[TKMCE]

Originally Posted by A350XWB

Bingo! Just read some of the articles that came out immediately after the accident.
Example

We fail to acknowledge that every human is bound to make mistakes and 22 years in IAF cannot prevent this. There is the classic example of Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten who proved that experience can sometimes make you over confident and cloud rational decision making.

That is a very interesting example. For the benefit of others, A350XWB is referring to the Pan Am KLM ground collision at Tenerife, Canary Islands in 1977 where 583 persons died. Infact circumstances are very similar to the AI Express accident, namely the KLM captain, Jacob van Zanten was KLM's chief flight instructor and his co pilot way too junior in hierarchy. The flight engineer (it was a 747 200) was trying to alert the pilot and co pilot that the Pan Am aircraft was still on the runway, but the co pilot was too overawed and did not stop the the commander from taking off despite not having Take Off clearance. One of the reasons the KLM captain was in a hurry was that he was under pressure to keep within FDTL - Flight and Duty Time Limitations and any further delay meant the last leg, the return flight back to Amsterdam may have to be cancelled.

Very similar background at Calicut. The Co- pilot was I think 32 and had more than 1700 hours on the aircraft type but the captain was almost double his age and a very senior training captain. If the flight diverted to Calicut, then the next day Doha flight would have had to be cancelled for sure and being Vande Bharat Mission flights, rescheduling an alternate flight would not have been easy. In short this was crew scheduling at its worst and AIX corporate culture is as much responsible for the accident as well as the Captain's over confidence.

[Aravind_M92]

There sure are a lot speculations on the crash. I remember a pilot friend of mine quoting this in event of a mishap
'If the pilot dies, blame the pilot. If the pilot survives, sue the pilot!'. Either way pilots are the first to be blamed! Even the Hudson crash, the pilots were sued and then once the board was proven wrong, only then they were free to go.

Coming to both Kozhikode and Mangalore crash, the landing speed speculated was about 200 knots. News claimed speeds as high as 250 knots! I'm not a pilot, but I'm pretty sure speed would've been maintained at about 160 to 180 knots. And being a wet runway, I believe the approach speeds were on the higher side. Also at the near threshold level, there was a strong tailwind causing the aircraft to overshoot the touchdown threshold. I remember photos were circulated where in the thrust levers were in idle position. And being in a heavy rain situation, I believe visibility too was compromised which could've made the pilot to miss out the warning lights and being in a desperate maneuver to land he would have missed out the warnings. Most of the airports do have a large runoff area in case of such excursions. And these tabletop airports don't have such arrangements. This combination of poor weather, overconfident and desperate pilot and airport conditions are to be blamed. The airport structural modification was proposed way before the crash in '06. And this is still under 'consideration'. Two crashes have already happened because of the same exact scenarios and conditions and still nothing is being done to rectify this!


Boeing 737 is also q peculiar aircraft. They were designed for low bypass JT8D engines which were completely placed below the wings, and made maneuvering and handling better. Then came the high bypass turbofans, the cfm 56 for the NG. The engine pod placement in front of the wings did pose a design flaw but being only available updated narrow body and US norms to support Boeing, and existing airport design, made the 737s the only option until the Airbus consortium came along with the 320 in '89 which has its own fly by wire issues which took till '93 to sort out. The Centre of Gravity issues became more profound with Max series which came along with famous MCAS issues to counteract the aircraft stall recovery. I believe any 737 pilot can vouch for the unique stall recovery procedure in a 737! The aircraft tends to go nose up in case of a stall and to recover, the pilot need to let the aircraft gain speed in the nose up position and then do the nose down maneuver to gain speed as opposed to other narrow bodies. I'm still wondering why Boeing went the 737 was instead of modifying the 757 which were in the size frames of the 320. Now that 757s have gone old, there isn't a Boeing replacement for the same and Airbus has stepped up with the 321XLR and have taken the market by storm. Boeing sure isn't depending on the commercial jet sales to support itself. Boeing has always been and will be a military contractor. And unless space programs and military deals are there, Boeing won't be concentrating on commercial jets. The upcoming NMA is still a lethargic project and nothing has come out on it. And I believe by the time NMA comes out the XLR would be in commercial service. With the 737 slowing getting back into service, let's see what the future holds!

[OldWays]

Though this comment is not directly related to this accident, I couldn’t brush away observations I make on a daily basis on aircraft landings. I happen to be living right at a coordinate where pilots make a steady straight line.

There’s a reasonably busy airport about 11 nautical miles away. The landing profiles followed by airline pilots are are ALL OVER THE PLACE. I thought they are given a profile (I assume) by ATC that pilots need to follow. Looking at the way they make a beeline- Nah!!!! The altitude at this distance is random at best. Some fly so low near this coordinate (11 miles to airport) that you would think they are going to touch down in a few seconds.

I observe this because the noise drives me nuts (kinda) - Though in theory the engines are powered way down compared to take offs. Many, especially domestic airliners do that ‘engine braking’ (it literally sounds like 30 year old Diesel engines grinding). NUTS!

I find it hard to brush off the thought that it is the same ones that either are not aware of traffic rules or do not associate importance to rules that drive on the roads are also probably flying these machines. Is it really like the skies are open to them (pilots) and they can apply any margin they like within (their) reason?

I would personally like to see some discipline and training on noise abatement to pilots and ATC staff. But hey....!

[memascom]

Originally Posted by no_fear

The key issue was as a decorated IAF pilot, he thought he knew it all and he wanted all his subordinates and juniors to accept his words as holy gospel.
I have heard anecdotes that a lot of ex-air force pilots in India behave similarly. Maybe airlines should re-think their hiring strategies.

In 2010, an arrogant and abusive ex-AF PIC in Pakistan continuously berated the first officer throughout the flight which caused the latter to not intervene when the captain made wrong decisions during the approach. The result was a horrible crash with no survivors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4JX...eFlightChannel