[speedsatya]

Originally Posted by clevermax

Can you explain more on this?

No offence meant to any pilots here ..all I meant to say is that the landings have never been smooth whenever I had taken an IA flight.

D A I J I W O R L D

Last minutes of the ill-fated AI flight
Source :www.daijiworld.com


Mangalore (Karnataka), May 22 (IANS) From landing to plunging down a cliff - the last minutes of the Air India Express flight that crashed here Saturday morning killing 159 people:

- The Boeing 737 lands around 6.05 a.m., visibility is clear.

- Does not stop.

- Crosses the runway spillover area of 90 metres.

- Ploughs through a wall of sandbags.

- Veers off.

- One of the wings, probably the right wing, crashes into a concrete structure, technically called a localizer, that functions as landing aid.

- Wing falls off at crash point.

- Plunges 200/300 metres down a cliff.

- Catches fire after some time, leaving charred bodies, some found with seat belts on, according to rescue workers.

- Some time during the last minutes, a big crack appears in the plane's body through which seven passengers escape. One of them a woman.

- A four-year-old girl rescued alive from the wreckage. She dies on way to a nearby hospital.

The last minutes of the Dubai to Mangalore flight were detailed by Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel at a press conference.

[RVD]

I am not sure if anyone else is from the Pilot fraternity here but I would like to clear a few points that come to my mind.

1) 8000ft is more than enough for a jet to land. In our country it is a given that the runways are of this length( or more) but in many other countries, it is a privilege to land in a 8000ft runway.

2) Having said that, it is really unfair to blame the pilot before the investigations come to a close as, usually,it is never A particular event but a sequense of events that leads to an aviation calamity.

3) People might critisize the pilot but one must remember that however experienced the pilot might be, there is always a human error aspect to the whole thing. Just like a michael schumacher cannot be expected to not have an accident or a Valentono Rossi to never have a fall, it is but human to make mistakes.( It is unfortunate that a pilots mistake has repurcussions on many lives)

4) Last but not the least, please do not jump to the conclusions that the indian aviation authorities or the administration would cover up the whole thing, as the regulations in India is one of the strictest. Have faith in the system and the truth will be out in the due course.


Regards

Rahul

[james]

The scene in mangalore is carzy right now! Chaos all over the palce. The govt' morgue is close to my place and traffic has literally come to a standstill there. We can only see KL registered vehicles parked outside the morgue and hospitals around the town, some in the middle of the main road. They were later towed away by the cops. I can hear an ambulance go past every 10 mins or so.
Calrock would be able to give a better idea of how the rescuse operations went off. His dad reached the spot 15mins after the crash and started helping with rescue operations. Cal reaced there after half an hour and all he could hear were screams of dozens of people that slowly died down.
Its sad to see such a tragedy happen in out quiet lil' town!
International flights have never had a problm with the length of the runway so far. But its really stupid for a runway to be built at such a dangerous location. There is no margin for error at such places! Its just a steep drop!!
IMO, its very wrong to blame the pilot for this! Just cause it overshot the runway, doesnt mean it landed post half point! Let the investigations come out with the true story. Hopefully they will!

[A350XWB]

Sad news. May the departed souls RIP.
It's sad to see irresponsible comments and conclusions from the media. It's even more sad to see several comments from the armchair experts from this forum also. Why blame only the media? For many people, it might come as a surprise that the safety record of AI is actually much better than many other leading airlines. No investigation reports have yet been available and people have jumped into conclusions - pilot error, dangerous airport etc etc. There are much more dangerous airports out there in this world. Why can't we just wait for an official report instead of speculating?

[aerohit]

Pic of the runway.......

[phamilyman]

Here are some interesting tidbits:
- The 737s can land within 1300-1400m. Runway length doesn't matter then. The RESA was adequate.
- Table top or not - other airports have roads/dense city sections just beyond the perimeter. Any aircraft overshooting those runways has no chance in hell either.
- DGCA's recent rules haven't helped. These pilots did a night flight from Calicut to Dubai and immediately back to Mangalore. That's bordering fatigue.
- Throw in a diktat against hard landings, and you have a recipe for disaster. Then it makes sense why while coming in hot/high they landed ~1-2000 ft ahead of the touchdown zone.
- The ill-fated plane came to rest about 83m from the end of the runway. So had they landed about 300ft earlier - the worst would've been a tire burst under hard braking

I am just wondering what ATC has to say about all this. They must have seen it LIVE!

Am just wondering when they announce recovery of the black box and start decoding it!

[Sha09mel]

Just can't believe that I've lost a very dear friend "sujata" who was one of the crew member of the ill fated IA flt.

"May her soul RIP"

[Ponmayilal]

I understand that various landing procedures are adopted by the pilots depending upon various factors and navigational aids available both on the aircraft and ground and operational at the airports concerned.

Can anyone in the know explain in simple language what exactly is the landing procedure adopted at the Mangalore Airport? What kind of navigational aids come into play both on the aircraft and airport? Is the landing fully instrument-dependent or part instrument-aided and part pilot manoeuvre?

All these become relevant before one can conclude of any pilot error. I read today that the expat pilot of the illfated aircraft had landed at Mangalore just five days before. So the airport and the facilities available there should have been nothing new to him.

I do believe that technology is so advanced as to monitor and guide the aircraft on the right glide path to make a perfect touchdown at the designated point in the runway and warn the pilot instantaneously if there is any deviation for the pilot to take any corrective action.

And if in case we do not have such advanced navigational aids at our airports.......... I am just thinking aloud without blaming anyone.

[raghav.carfreak]

May all the souls rest in peace
Condolences to the family members!

[Deep Blue]

Any other table top airports in India or world?

[kannan666]

In India, you also have Kozhikode Airport as well as Lengpui Airport in Aizawl, Mizoram which are table top airports

[phamilyman]

Ponmayilal, it was an ILS approach with 6km visibility. I suggest you first consult avherald.com and then the thread on pprune.org - they have analysis from pilots themselves. I have regurgigated it in the above post only

[Ponmayilal]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Ponmayilal, it was an ILS approach with 6km visibility. I suggest you first consult avherald.com and then the thread on pprune.org - they have analysis from pilots themselves. I have regurgigated it in the above post only

Thanks for your inputs. I shall go through them at my leisure.

Originally Posted by Ponmayilal

.......I do believe that technology is so advanced as to monitor and guide the aircraft on the right glide path to make a perfect touchdown at the designated point in the runway and warn the pilot instantaneously if there is any deviation for the pilot to take any corrective action.

And if in case we do not have such advanced navigational aids at our airports.......... I am just thinking aloud without blaming anyone.

In today's Times of India, I did get an answer to my above ranting. And here it is.

[VLOCT]

Such a sad day. May all their souls rest in peace. May their loved ones find peace.

[clevermax]

Originally Posted by speedsatya

No offence meant to any pilots here ..all I meant to say is that the landings have never been smooth whenever I had taken an IA flight.
.

Read that they prolong the touchdown to make a smoother landing. But it is actually not safer than touching down at the right point as suggested by ILS but it will not be a smoother touch down, but considered to be safer.

If a pilot continuously make such rough landings, he/she will be sent for training programs, that could be the reason why they make the touchdown a bit more late for smooth landing.

Also read that the pilot was into his 10th hour of duty by that time, it was violating some rules. I don't think AI uses some crew tracking / crew planning system which automatically warns the crew controller if some of the crew's rosters violate rules - it may all be in excel sheets who knows.