THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The mishap involving the Air India Express evacuation flight at the Kozhikode airport bears striking similarities with the accident at the Mangalore airport 10 years ago when an Air India Express flight from Dubai with 166 people on board, overshot the runway before bursting into flames. Just eight persons survived that crash.
Capt Zlatko Glusica and co-pilot Capt HS Ahluwalia of the Air India Express flight IX-812, who were quite familiar with the layout of the Mangalore airport, misjudged the length of the runway forcing them to make a last-ditch effort to get the plane airborne after they realised that they had landed way beyond the safe touchdown zone in the tabletop runway. But on Friday, the pilots didn’t attempt any such misadventure like trying to make the aircraft airborne after it overshot the tabletop runway at the Calicut airport.
It is not clear at the moment whether it was a wise move by the former Indian Air Force (IAF) test pilot Captain DV Sathe and his co-pilot Akhilesh Kumar, which helped bring down the number of casualties. A crew member, who emerged from the ill-fated Air India Express flight, told airport authorities that the flight didn’t try to land for sometime due to poor visibility and they attempted touchdown only after the visibility improved.
The flight also landed safely and it was while making a U-turn on the runway that the aircraft went out of control and veered off the surface, crashing against the compound wall and plunging down onto the road 35 feet below the tabletop runway. The aircraft split into two, nearly separating the cockpit from the fuselage and the pilots were taken out of the aircraft after breaking open the cockpit.
While the aircraft involved in the Mangalore mishap had caught fire soon after the accident, here the flight didn’t burst into flames which also reduced the casualties. Since the flight landed almost safely,the speed was relatively low than the aircraft involved in the Mangalore accident where speed was very high as the pilots were trying make the aircraft airborne when they realised that it was going to crash.
Aviation expert Jacob K Philip said, “Whether the pilots were trying to save the lives of passengers can be ascertained only after a detailed inquiry.” But the background of the two accidents bears an uncanny similarity and the same airline’s aircraft were involved in both the accidents.
