[airbus]

Originally Posted by Pegasus1134

Correct. Had there been a need to perform a belly landing due to a glitch with the landing gear, the ATC would be informed beforehand. And this would be all over the news by now. Hence we may assume that a normal landing was attempted, till further info is provided.

If there was a problem with landing gear it would have been an emergency landing and information should have been out by now. Moreover, if it was emergency landing then ideally they should have diverted to a nearby bigger airport with better runway conditions and emergency response facilities.

Air India Express Plane Landed 1 Km Beyond Runway Threshold At High Speed

At the time of the first approach to land, visibility was 2 kilometres and there was heavy rain. Reports suggest that the pilots asked Air Traffic Control for permission to land from the opposite end of the runway and proceeded to manoeuvre the aircraft to land despite the presence of the strong tail-wind, reported to be approximately 9 knots or more than 16 kilometres per hour. Landing with a tail-wind component in rainy conditions with a wet runway is often challenging. In this case, the tail-wind would have pushed the aircraft in the direction that it was moving, necessitating additional braking action to bring the jet to a safe stop.

If IX-1344 floated over the surface of the runway and touched down late, the pilots onboard would have had the option of performing a go-around, where they would bring the aircraft to full power and lift off once again. In this case, the pilots on the aircraft appeared to have committed to stopping the aircraft within the remaining length of the 2.8 km long runway despite touching down 1 km down after its threshold.

The Civil Aviation Minister, Hardeep Puri has also confirmed that there was sufficient fuel onboard the jet for it to fly to an alternate airfield. ''I have asked my colleague, the Chairman and Managing Director of Air India how much fuel did he have. I have an answer,'' said Mr. Puri in a press conference in Kozhikode earlier today. ''There was fuel. Let us wait for the investigations.''

[adrian]

Originally Posted by skanchan95

In Mangalore 's case, the cliff is much steeper on both sides than Calicut. How does one fill a cliff to extend the runway?

Dear Sir, I didn't mention about filling a cliff but doing an artificial extension like these.









Picture courtesy : https://structurae.net/en/media/2414...adeira-airport


We have the konkan railway line structures which enables a 220 plus ton locomotive from one cliff to another, don't we ?

[skanchan95]

Originally Posted by adrian

Dear Sir, I didn't mention about filling a cliff but doing an artificial ]

Yes, I misunderstood. Apologies. Clearly this has been done before and I am no engineer to comment on its implementation in airports like Calicut and Mangalore.

But atleast at the end of Runway 24 in Mangalore, it may not be implementable. For one, the cliff is too steep and second, there is a river flowing. Even the airport entry and exit ramp from the bottom of the hill at Mangalore airport is quite steep.

Capt Sathe during his career in the IAF was deputed as a pilot to DRDO for the Avro AWACS programme, the sole prototype of which crashed in 1999 killing all on board, which put an end to the project.

[Sutripta]

I wonder if Covid protocols made it difficult to divert to another airport.

Sutripta

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Sutripta

I wonder if Covid protocols made it difficult to divert to another airport.

When it comes to flight safety this should be of no concern to the captain at all! If it is, either the captain or the company, possibly both is/are at fault.

Previous experience of the captain in the IAF is not relevant at all. He needs to be judged on how he handled this particular flight. Statically, experience is not a big factor in aviation accident. To put it differently, the most experienced, proficient pilots have screwed up in the past.


Jeroen

[NiInJa]

2020 is one sad year. May the departed rest in peace.

Just an observation which might be completely wrong, the land surface of the slope behind the tail section does not seem to be damaged. One could expect skid marks and the shrubbery to be flattened by the weight and force of the plane, but it looks fairly untouched. It appears as if the plane shot off like a projectile from the top and landed nose or chin first at the bottom of the slope thus breaking it apart.

[AMG Power]

Air Force pilots are trained to operate under conditions that have a lower threshold of safety than civil aviation. This is an occupational requirement.

They operate with less than ideal conditions in airports, runways and weather.

This continued operation under a lower threshold of safety usually gets them to be oblivious to situations perceived as risky by a civilian pilot. What may be considered as hazardous would be a matter of routine for an Air Force pilot.

And when one is a test pilot with the Airforce, that threshold of safety is probably even lower. Air Force test pilots, apart from trying out new aircraft have to try out whether new airfields in remote places can actually get a plane to land.

When airforce pilots move to civil aviation
they subconsciously can continue to accept hazardous situations as normal. Having continually learnt to operate with a lower threshold of safety, it is unknowingly built into their subconsciousness.

This is probably among the many contributing factors in Calicut.

A full flight, lots of luggage, bad weather, a tail wind, and under those conditions opting for a runway declared unsafe, touching down a kilometre into that hazardous runway and you have all the makings for disaster waiting to happen.

[BoneCollector]

Originally Posted by NiInJa

Just an observation which might be completely wrong, the land surface of the slope behind the tail section does not seem to be damaged. One could expect skid marks and the shrubbery to be flattened by the weight and force of the plane, but it looks fairly untouched. It appears as if the plane shot off like a projectile from the top and landed nose or chin first at the bottom of the slope thus breaking it apart.

Your observation is correct as per the eyewitness account here. There have been people talking about a belly landing but there are no substantial news about it. The runway is operational that means there is no damage to it. Let's see when preliminary report comes out.

[V.Narayan]

Right now we may want to wait to hear what comes out of the Cockpit Voice Recorder and the Black Box. Till then everything is speculation and sadly the all ignorant all presumptuous social media expertise. The deceased Commander being ex-IAF, erstwhile Sword of Honour winner etc does not have any bearing at all in terms of being better or worse or braver or not.

[avishar]

Media are making it sound as if the Calicut runway is just a cutting in the trees. It's sufficiently long enough, 9500 ft is ample to land a 737 even in rain and reduced friction. On a dry day a 737 will usually use no more than 6500 ft, so the margin for a wet day is enough.

Bombay's secondary runway is not much longer than that and handles wide-bodies during monsoon. And Pune airport's main runway is a 1000ft shorter than Calicut's!

The Calicut runway possibly might not have been grooved and could have done with an EMAS.

However runway length will not be enough if an unfortunate series of events happen like unstabilized approach, a tailwind, higher than normal landing speed and touching down too far down the runway. It is a mystery to why was the aircraft not told to divert or the pilot did not choose to do so. There were many to choose from in that area and most of the airports are empty. Fuel shouldn't have been a problem since the aircraft should have been carrying enough for holding, missed approaches, divert and even a missed approach at diversion airport. With very little air traffic, there was no holding due to congestion too.

[AMG Power]

And the blame game starts:

DGCA had issued show cause notice to Calicut Airport on critical safety lapses in 2019

If it was a "CRITICAL" safety lapse why didn't they just close down the airport?

[padmrajravi]

There are confirmed eye witness reports that the plane touched down past the one-third mark of the runway. It is confusing how the runway gets the primary blame, when a plane lands with a tailwind past the touch down zone and overshoots it. It is either a mechanical failure or a judgement error induced by bad weather. Water in the runway must have eliminated any possibilities of a recovery once that problem occured.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/77427990.cms

The complaints about no safety area of calicut airport is not true. It has a safety area, but straight after the safety area,there is a slope, which is the case with all table top runways. Table top runways are inherently risky, but in this case the problem started when the aircraft landed deep into the runway. Table top nature must have played a role in the casualities though.

[bsdbsd]

Shame on Indian Government or DGCA to continue to lead the way in sub standard infrastructure in commercial aviation. We are the track leaders when it comes to 3rd world road infrastucture, and seems like this malaise extends to aviation as well, where people are sitting happy after doing third rated jobs. But we are space faring nation alright.

First of all, where are the grooved runways? That too in tabletop airports like Mangalore and Calicut which gets battered by Monsoons.

Were the pilots under pressure to land because of strict SOPs?

Was the METAR current or 30 mins behind?

For once I want this country to lead in something where there is an opportunity, but the powers that be are very happy doing mediocre jobs and blame games.

I saw a video of landing in Bangalore on YouTube and the runway does not even have center lights. This is year 2020. Looks like outer ring road. Please correct me if I am wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-cUFUJ8o2Y&t=533s

[prkiran]

Originally Posted by padmrajravi

There are confirmed eye witness reports that the plane touched down past the one-third mark of the runway. It is confusing how the runway gets the primary blame, when a plane lands with a tailwind past the touch down zone and overshoots it.

Can't help but wonder if the narrative would have stayed the same if the pilot was not ex-IAF.

[AlphaKilo]

Not going to comment on the incident itself but just on the context of the captain being an decorated ex-IAF fighter jock, I can say only one thing. He was a fighter and test pilot for around 20years and since the last 15years he has been flying for Air India and now Air India express. He has enough experience in civil flying. Moreover, dgca is very strict when it comes to conversion of military pilots to civil aviation. Further, the airforce pilots are always trained with the motto of your every flight is your first solo and one is as good a pilot as his last landing or bombing run. New sortie new day and one is judged afresh. They are not trained with lower safety threshold at all. Aviation is serious everywhere and there is no difference whether one is flying in civil or military. If this is a pilot's mistake, it doesn't matter if one is the most experienced test pilot, if he makes a mistake in that particular landing, the plane will not forgive him. His experience counts only until he/she makes a perfect landing.
I request all of you to not jump to the conclusion that all fighter pilots are top gun movie style adventure mavericks. In fact, they are the opposite of it. Real military flying has nothing to do with top gun movie in any possible way.