Kozhikode Air India crash: DGCA was told about dangers on runway 10 but no steps taken, say experts

Following the tragic incident of Air India Express crash in Kerala's Kozhikode, aviation safety experts pointed out that the accident could have been averted because DGCA was warned about the dangers of landing on runway 10 in tailwind conditions at the particular airport. ETV Bharat Reporter Tauseef Ahmad talks to experts exploring what caused the tragedy.

New Delhi: The tragic death of at least 18 people after an Air India Express flight with 191 passengers on board skidded off the runway in rain and broke apart while landing at Kozhikode on Friday has sent shockwaves across the nation. The experts said that the accident could have been averted if the DGCA had taken lessons from the 2011 letter which had warned about the dangers of landing on runway 10 in tailwind conditions at the particular airport.

Capt Mohan Ranganathan, an aviation safety expert specialising in wet operations training, in his June 17, 2011, letter to the Civil Aviation secretary Nasim Zaidi and the DGCA Bharat Bhushan had stated that all the flights that land on runway 10 is in tailwind conditions in rain are endangering the lives of all onboard.

"The Kozhikode runway does not have the minimum RESA on one and NO RESA on the other. The runway strip is just half the minimum width laid down in ICAO Annex 14. This fact was known to the DGCA team that has been conducting inspections and safety assessment during the past several years," the letter had stated referring to Air India Express accident in 2010 at Mangalore.

Sanat Kaul, Chairman of International Foundation for Aviation Aerospace and Drones, said, "Weather conditions were bad for landing on Friday and also there was tailwind while landing which caused the aircraft to overshoot the runway."

He, however, said, "Mangalore and Calicut areas are more or less similar, the government could have at least decided to not allow the landing of aircraft during the monsoon season. I would say that the Civil Aviation Ministry and the DGCA have not learnt much from the Mangalore accident."

Sources in the DGCA on Saturday told that AI Express plane which crashed last night at Kozhikode airport landed one kilometre down the length of the Runway at the tabletop airport.

Mark Martin, an aviation expert said that the Kozhikode plane crash on Friday was the toughest circumstance of a crash ever occurring.

"The flights could have been diverted due to bad weather. After the first attempt to land, the crew could have taken the aircraft either to Bombay, Bangalore or Hyderabad. But the problem was that they could not take them over there because of quarantine as they were international passengers and nobody knows how many of them were infected with the coronavirus."

Mark Martin further suggested that all coastal airports in the country especially those in the western side should be relocated and realigned to the planes. There should be no elevation with the airports.

Meanwhile, DGCA officials on Saturday said that the aviation regulator had issued a Show Cause Notice to the director of the Kozhikode airport on July 11 last year after it found "various critical safety lapses".

"Cracks are observed at runway 28 TDZ (touchdown zone) and along runway C/L (centre/ left) marking at runway 10 TDZ," the show-cause notice had said.

The notice also said "excessive rubber deposit" was observed in the area from runway C/L marking to three metres on both the sides of touchdown zone of runway 28.

Aviation consultancy CAPA said, "the DGCA and the Aircraft Investigation Board must conduct thorough probes into the Kozhikode tragedy, and follow through on actions to achieve a systematic overhaul of aviation safety in India especially at airports with tabletop runways."

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Saturday reached Kozhikode to take stock of the status and said that Digital flight data recorder, cockpit voice recorder has been recovered from Express plane and Aircraft Accident Investigation Board is conducting the probe.