NEW DELHI: Human error and the lack of adequate infrastructure at Goa’s Manohar International Airport led to the aborted take-off of an Air India flight to Hyderabad last December, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has said in its final report on the incident released on Monday.
The incident involving Air India flight AIC 2592, carrying 151 passengers and 7 crew members, occurred on the night of December 5, 2024. The flight was stopped mid-roll just as it was accelerating for take-off. The AAIB, which investigated the event under the Aircraft Rules, 2017, has now released its 16-page final report.
The Airbus A320 was rolling down the taxiway at 124 knots around 9.17 pm when the Air Traffic Control (ATC) noticed the aircraft was not on the assigned runway. Visibility at the time was 3,000 metres. The flight had mistakenly entered Taxiway ‘A’ instead of Taxiway ‘A5’, which had been assigned for take-off on Runway 28.
The aircraft was immediately ordered to abort take-off, and the pilots complied. The AAIB classified the incident as a "serious incident."
Specifying the probable causes for the incident, the probe report said there was a "Situational Awareness Deficit" on the part of the crew. The take-off clearance given by the ATC likely caused the crew's cognitive focus to shift entirely towards the take-off.
"This shift may have diminished their situational awareness, resulting in expectation bias or cognitive overload, which prevented them from recognising the visual cues indicating they were at the taxiway intersection instead of the runway intersection," the report noted.
The flight crew did not fully comply with the ATC’s taxi instructions and failed to enter Taxiway A5 before aligning the aircraft for take-off. “Had the crew followed the correct instructions and entered TWY A5 before turning for line-up, the incident could have been avoided,” the report stated.
Several other factors also contributed to the incident. The airport did not have an Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System (A-SMGCS), which could have improved crew awareness. Meanwhile, the co-pilot was preoccupied with troubleshooting the Electronic Flight Bag (EFB), which had gone into sleep mode. The EFB displays a dynamic map showing the aircraft’s real-time position using data from the Flight Management System.
“The co-pilot was trying to restore the EFB display to ON mode to initiate the LINE-UP checklist. During this time, he failed to verify the departure runway while the flying pilot was incorrectly lining up on Taxiway A,” the report said.
Key recommendations by AAIB:
1. The Airports Authority of India should consider installing an A-SMGCS system at the Goa airport.
2. Air India and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) should coordinate with IT teams to prevent EFB systems from entering sleep mode during critical operations.
3. All airline operators should encourage cockpit crews to cross-check their aircraft's position using the Aircraft Moving Map alongside primary navigation tools before take-off.