Mangalore crash: Airport in sharp focus as speculation rages

In the past 42 days, the global civil aviation industry has witnessed four major crashes, five in the whole calendar year till May 22, killing 363 people. The Mangalore incident comes close on the heels of the crash involving Libyan airliner Afriqiyah Airways, which saw the death of 103 out of 104 passengers on May 12.

The aircraft involved in the last five accidents include two Boeing 737s, an Airbus A300 and A330, and a Russian-made Tupolev, owned by the Polish Air Force.

The Mangalore crash is the deadliest in India since the mid-air collision between a Saudi Arabian aircraft and a Kazakh cargo plane near New Delhi (November 1996), which killed 348 people.
Before it was extended, three similar mishaps occurred on the Mangalore runway — two Avros belonging to Indian Airlines and one Boeing belonging to East West Airlines were involved in these.

However, Saturday’s incident is the first of this kind to take place after the runway extension and the opening of the new terminal building. The current runway was opened in 2006 and since then 32,000 landings have taken place at the airport.

“It will be unfair to make any observation on the runway size, unless there is concrete evidence to do so,” said one senior official from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
He added: “The pilot, Z Glusicea, had done 19 landings on the same runway, while co-pilot HS Ahluwalia from Mangalore recorded 66 landings on the current runway. The two pilots had clocked 13,750 hours of flying and the aircraft was just two years old.”

Aviation experts are cautious when expressing their opinion. “The table-top runway, like the one in Mangalore, makes landing complicated, but not risky, and that is one of the reasons all airlines put their best pilots on the job,” said Captain P Vaishnav, a flying instructor and trainer. He added: “It’s difficult to predict what could have gone wrong as the full investigation has not taken place, but what we can safely predict is that he could have landed a bit late and at a high speed which could have made it difficult to bring the plane to a halt.”

Air India officials are not going on record to confirm what caused this accident. “Without getting a detailed investigation report and gaining access to the cockpit voice recorder, it’s difficult to give the exact cause,” said a senior Air India official.

Off the record, officials are saying that it could have been an error of judgment on the pilot’s part. Initial investigation reveals that the pilot missed the touchdown point by at least 2000 feet, which many pilots in their personal capacity refuse to believe.

In order to bring down the cost of operation, it is alleged that all airlines flying into Dubai do so with minimum fuel loads and buy fuel at a cheaper rate from there.

“The aircraft was not carrying more than five tonnes of fuel, which is mandatory and required for any diversion as per the rules of the DGCA,” said Jitendra Bhargava, former Air India director.