Mangalore crash: A warning unheeded led to tragedy

Saturday’s incident was something Arthur Pereira had long feared. The activist, who had taken up the cause of the people displaced by Mangalore’s Bajpe airport had learned, more than a decade ago, that the project did not conform to standards prescribed by authorities like DGCA(Directorate General of Civil Aviation), the National Building Code of India, and the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

Moreover, even those prescribed by the International Civil Aviation Authority were not met due to terrain limitations at Bajpe making it an unsuitable site for an international airport, say Environment Support Group, Bangalore, and Vimana Nildhana Vistarana Virodhi Samithi, Bajpe. Several other locations were more suitable but authorities went ahead with the proposed site, yielding to pressure from “business, real estate and hotel lobbies”, activists allege.

“This is no accident, but a direct result of the series of deliberate failures of officials and key decision makers at the highest levels of all authorities connected with the decision to allow the 2nd runway to be constructed and commissioned,” says Pereira, Trustee, ESG, and spokesperson of the Samithi.

Pereira began to study how airports are commissioned in India when an airport was commissioned in Bajpe, his town, and people were displaced without proper compensation or rehabilitation. “I asked for a feasibility report and was told that it was yet to be done. But the land had already been acquired. This is a classic case of putting the horse before the cart,” he says.

When neither petitions nor demonstrations against the airport yielded any response from the authorities, the groups moved High Court in 1997 stating that the runway is insufficient for emergency landing. AAI filed an affidavit in response and the court dismissed “fears of the petitioners” of the runway length being insufficient for emergency landing as being “without any basis”.

“If the runway was long and wide enough, even if the plane had skidded, the pilot would probably have enough room to manoeuvre and avert an accident of this magnitude,” Pereira says.

Disappointed by the court’s response, the groups approached International Civil Aviation Organisation to intervene which turned a deaf year too, claim the groups. They approached the High Court again in 2002 with a fresh PIL emphasising that a plane moving at a certain speed attempting an emergency landing “would come crashing down the hillsides from a height of 80-100 metres on either side of the proposed runway.”

The petition was again dismissed with a direction to the authorities to execute the project complying with the standards. Next, the group petitioned the Supreme Court which too dismissed the plea while emphasising that laws and norms be followed while expanding the airport.

However, not heeding this direction, construction of the second runway began in 2004 without a techno-economic assessment, feasibility study, or even a comprehensive Environment Impact Assessment.

“The runway was built in comprehensive violation of applicable laws, standards and direction of the Supreme Court,” says Leo Saldanha, Co-ordinator, ESG. Again, in March of the same year, the groups “reminded” Dr Naseem Zaidi, Chairman (Addl Charge) and Joint Secretary, AAI, of the need to comply with the Supreme Court direction saying “such action would jeopardise passenger safety”, in vain. The incident now is a result of negligence at “the highest levels”, Saldanha says.

If only someone had heeded their warnings, Pereira wishes. “Even emergency access roads to the runway were not built. These are necessary to help rescue vehicles reach accident spots within and around airport in a certain period of time,” he says. “We are seen by the courts and governments as people opposing development, as useless interlopers. That has been the general attitude,” he says, offering an explanation for why their petitions were dismissed repeatedly.