OUR BUREAU
May 22: An Air India Express flight from Dubai overshot the hilltop runway at Mangalore’s Bajpe airport today, fell onto a wooded valley some 200 metres below and burst into flames, killing 158 people including 23 children and babies.
India’s third-worst air crash, and its first major one in a decade, left behind suspicions of pilot error at one of the country’s most picturesque but trickiest airports, its “tabletop” runways precariously perched atop a plateau with their ends dropping off into thick-green gorges.
Eight passengers survived the 6.05am accident almost miraculously, jumping out through a crack in the fuselage as Flight IX 812 hit a concrete navigational aid called a localiser at the end of the runway and broke into two.
“We had no hope to survive, but we survived,” G.K. Pradeep, an Indian technician employed in Dubai, said.
Some others among the 160 passengers and six crew members may have leapt into the fire, stoked by aviation fuel gushing out of the wings, as they tried to clamber out through the same “hole”.
Airport sources said the Boeing 737-800’s 53-year-old pilot Zlatko Glusica, a British national of Serbian origin, had 10,200 hours of flying experience but apparently miscalculated the “landing threshold” and brought the plane down too late.
Instead of landing within the first 1,000-1,300 feet of the 8,300ft-long runway, he touched down almost near the halfway mark although the visibility was a healthy 6km, the sources said. The aircraft lost control on the dry, concrete runway, a burst tyre worsening matters if some of the survivors are right.
There had been no distress signal from the pilot although one survivor mentioned “turbulence” before landing. Veteran pilots suspect that Glusica probably braked hard instead of attempting a “go around” — that is, take off at once, gain enough height and approach once more to land correctly.
Accidents of this kind, known as “runway excursions”, are fairly common but today’s led to tragedy because of the tabletop runway, experts said.
The world aviation body has urged all airports to build 1,000ft-long safety extensions at the end of each runway. Those with little room for extension have been advised to install soft ground layers — known as arrestor beds — to slow planes.
The Mangalore runway has a “spillover area” of only 300ft to slow overshooting planes, and there are conflicting claims whether it is a bed of sand.
One of Parkinson's Law says that if we expect an accident to happen, it is bound to happen.
From records and comments it is obvious that this accident was waiting to happen.
This airport on a plateau demanded that everything was perfect and it allowed no room for error. That I suppose is asking too much from human beings.
The pilot Zlatko Glusica had made 19 earlier landing on this airport.
He failed on the 20th.
If it had not happened on the 20th it may have occured later, say at the 45th.
And this is not the first or going to be the last.
I understand Mr. Moily too has a narrow escape some years ago when his plane too ran off the airport but was saved by some boulders which stopped the plane from falling off the cliff.
This plane and its passengers were not so lucky.
This airpoort should be discarded immediately for passenger services.
It may be used by the IAF where smaller strips are required for take off and landing
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