[TKMCE]

Since a few have been emphasising on statistics, let me introduce some here.

The 8 major Indian airlines currently have a total 588 aircraft (Air India 122, Jet 112, Indigo 182, Spice Jet 69, Go Air39, Air India Express 23,Vistara 22 and Air Asia India 19). For uniformity of analysis, the data is taken from planespotters.net today.

Compare this with the US where the four biggest Airline groups alone have 3338 aircraft (American 948, Delta 885, United 769 and Southwest 736).


Based on this alone one cannot come to conclusions that India is better off than US etc.


Second, you have confidential incident reporting systems in many parts of the world like ASRS (Aviation Safety Reporting System) in US and CHIRP (Confidential Human Incident Reporting System) in UK. In India to the best of my knowledge, you do not have a similar system here. In 1995, the various Indian airlines together had a fleet size of around 135 aircraft. Now it is close to 600. Indian aviation is growing at a rapid pace.

Are accident reports not important?. Ofcourse they are and more importantly the lessons learned from them. In 1990 in the crash of an Indian Airlines A320 in Bangalore, there were major deficiencies cited about the time frame by which the rescue services reached. Yet, 20 years later similar shortcomings were reported in the 2010 Air India Express accident at Mangalore. And similar shortcomings were also cited in the 2016 accident of Jet Airways in Goa. It is not relevant here arguing that HAL was responsible for providing Fire and Rescue services in Bangalore or Navy at Goa. The issue here is have we learned something from the past incidents? Looks like nothing much has happened.

In US, the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) publishes the accident reports. But the FAA in turn brings out the excellent resource
" Lessons Learned" (currently under reconstruction) analysing the major issues which caused these Incidents. In India, as things stand, many accident reports do not even have the CVR
transcripts as part of the reports.

Let me conclude this analysis with just one final thought. I do not think any passenger of the affected flight which was the subject of this thread including the person whose efforts resulted in sharing the accident report here in Team BHP will be satisfied with lines of argument or statistics saying that similar incidents may or my not have happened with more or less frequency in other parts of the world.. It is this point that I am trying to highlight and that if the same deficiencies in a particular area (used as an example) get cited 20 and 26 years after the first documented incident I mentioned earlieir, is high time that we do learn some lessons from the past.

Good day.

[Jeroen]

Better, but also very different from your earlier conclusion. Response times of rescue services have nothing to do with the pilots and or CRM of course.

Although, it probably has a lot to do with how well coordinated, organized and competent they are. So it would still be a form of resource management that falls short here. Who is in charge/responsible for the rescue services at civil airports in India? The airport authorities I imagine? Are they ultimately controlled by the DGCA, or does the DGCA only has oversight and compliance verification responsibility?

True that statistics are meaningless for people who have been involved in an incident and or accident. No matter how rare the occurrence, it can have a profound impact on them.

Jeroen

[Rahul Bhalgat]

I have been a silent reader of this thread for last few weeks. Enjoyed the views put-up, especially by TKMCE and Jeron. Thank you gentlemen for throwing light on different aspects.

I am really surprised by the cause of this accident. The PIC started the take-off roll with unequal thrust; 40% and 28% (which is a glaring deviation from the SOP), the other pilot too did not notice it, after which they also failed to respond timely.

Aren't these the big mistakes? Why shall it happen when there are two pilots inside the cockpit? And how does the airline run their operations? This reminds me of many famous colleges, which misuse the reputation earned in past and employ pretty ordinary teachers just to save cost but command higher fees by projecting the brand value and posh campus.

And on the top of it, some pilots of the same airline sounded harsh and arrogant when the possibility of pilot error was being discussed on this thread.

I cannot forget one answer given to me by a commercial pilot at Pune airport long long back. When he too was waiting for arrival of the aircraft at Pune airport, I had asked him why the aircrafts are pushed back instead of using reverse thrust. He, in typical informal Hindi, remarked that this is just a ploy by the airport authorities to extract some extra money from the airlines.

Before some bigger accidents take place, the DGCA and other concerned authorities shall really look deep into how pilots are recruited and how airlines / airports run the operations.

[jayakumarkp]

Another new incident.
Air India flight had to be diverted to another airport due to ILS equipment not working.

As per the article, pilots and the ATC did a remarkable job handling the situation.


https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/65849277.cms

[AlphaKilo]

Originally Posted by jayakumarkp

Another new incident.
Air India flight had to be diverted to another airport due to ILS equipment not working.

As per the article, pilots and the ATC did a remarkable job handling the situation.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/65849277.cms

Here is the ATC talk from LIVEATC (put in youtube by someone)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FTw9TQtw38

Adding the ground track of the flight path:

[TKMCE]

Now the turn of Air India Express.

Wheels hit top of airport boundary wall at Trichy.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/air-...mumbai-1930799

Lucky......

Reminds me of that horrific accident at Aurangabad in 1993 where the official report
(atleast the ICAO summary) rather unjustly I thought attributed the cause as pilot error.

[BoneCollector]

Originally Posted by TKMCE

Now the turn of Air India Express.

Wheels hit top of airport boundary wall at Trichy.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/air-...mumbai-1930799
.

More on this here https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=216197

If you look at damages, I wonder how aircraft maintained cruising altitude for over 3 hours! And surprisingly neither the pilot nor the ATC were aware of such severe damages.

Statement by Air India.


It was Air India Express flight number IX611 operated by VT-AYD a Boeing 737-800

Source - Tarun Shukla on Twitter. https://twitter.com/shukla_tarun/sta...828836352?s=19

[Rahul Bhalgat]

Originally Posted by TKMCE

Now the turn of Air India Express.

Wheels hit top of airport boundary wall at Trichy.

Lucky......

Reminds me of that horrific accident at Aurangabad in 1993 where the official report
(atleast the ICAO summary) rather unjustly I thought attributed the cause as pilot error.

Lucky indeed that everyone survived.

IIRC, the Aurangabad accident was indeed due to the pilot error. He initiated the takeoff with more payload than the weather and runway would permit. As a result, the lift-off took place almost at the end of the runway.

[TKMCE]

You are correct Rahul but the report (rather the summary) also mentions that the impact of the aircraft at Aurangabad was with the cargo (Cotton bales ?) piled high on a truck which was passing outside the Airport boundary wall.The aircraft did clear the boundary wall but it was that truck which also contributed significantly to the accident

I could never get hold of the official report but the summary is there in the DGCA website.

[Rahul Bhalgat]

This Air India Express aircraft had overrun the end of the Trichy airport runway into the unpaved ground before lifting off!

An Airports Authority of India (AAI) source said, “The skid marks on the ground extend way beyond the runway end. The aircraft damaged a runway end-light too.”

Capt Mohan Ranganathan, air safety expert, said, “It looks like the pilots tried to reject takeoff. It appears to be a case of indecision. They seem to have continued without realizing that they’d used up a lot of runway in the indecision.”

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Rahul Bhalgat

Capt Mohan Ranganathan, air safety expert, said, "It looks like the pilots tried to reject takeoff. It appears to be a case of indecision. They seem to have continued without realizing that they'd used up a lot of runway in the indecision."

I wonder why he is making these comments. Unless he has access to the flight recorder data, there is no way you can come to such conclusions. I can think of several scenarios where the pilots reacted properly but still ended up in this situation.

An aborted take off after V1 for instance. Even though in most cases after V1 you will take off, there are situations where you don't. In which case you might overrun the runway. Sometimes that is less risky then continuing the take off.

Regardless, I have seen this Capt Mohan Ranganathan, air safety expert, making statements before. Making such sweeping statements without facts doesn't make him very credible to me. But I am sure it will get him media attention. Truth is, the media will not call experts that would tell them to wait for the accident/incident report to be published.

Whereas that is the only appropriate response.

Jeroen

[Spinnerr]

Originally Posted by BoneCollector

Attachment 1807049

This online paper has gone ahead and reported that it was the Dubai airport which denied permission to land. Was not able to see this part in other reports of this incident.



Link to the news.

[TKMCE]

Unless there was so much cargo (which cannot be ruled out entirely though), the aircraft is unlikely to be overloaded. This is a 180 pax capacity aircraft.

By the time the report comes up (normal DGCA standards...for the report to be uploaded in their website...is two years), , hardly anyone will remember the incident.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by TKMCE

Unless there was so much cargo (which cannot be ruled out entirely though), the aircraft is unlikely to be overloaded. This is a 180 pax capacity aircraft.

.

Whether you are overloaded depends on the runway length, wind strength, wind direction, airport altitude, and runway contamination (e.g. rain, snow). And of course the type of aircraft and the type of engines and flap settings. To name the most important parameters. Nearby elevated terrain (e.g. mountains) might requite considerations too.

Unless you do a full take off calculation you can't claim that the aircraft was overloaded or not. You will also need to do a weight and balance calculation to ensure you have a correct centre of gravity. Which on various aircraft will result in the trim settings. With an incorrect cg and or trim setting the aircraft might not rotate or rotate to early

The investigation report will show all of the above and will make clear whether the aircraft was correct configured, calculations done correctly etc.

Jeroen

[TKMCE]

It can also in addition to all the various scenarios elaborated above, be a simple case of messing up your calculations as seen in this famous Emirates incident.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirates_Flight_407