After Crash, Experts Raise Fingers at Air Safety Norms
Following country’s worst air crash in Mangalore, aviation experts have raised questions over air safety norms observed by airlines in the country, said media reports.
Founder President of the Federation of Indian Pilots Captain MR Wadia said that time and again government after government have stressed the need to have independent air safety boards to prevent accidents but the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) doesn’t have any such mechanism in place so far, reports said.
While Air Force’s former flight safety in-charge Air Marshal A K Singh (retd) referred to bad weather over the crash saying, “I don’t know whether Air India has any policy akin to that of international airlines, which encourages pilots to deviate from their route even if the weather is marginally bad but here we could see the weather was rough and it had rained there.”
About the plane over-shooting the runway by 200 metres, he said, “Airlines in India ask the pilots to carry out smooth landings and to do so, the pilots have to let the aircraft sail along the runway for some time which results in loss of 200 to 300 metres for the aircraft.”
Kaanu Gohain, former DGCA, said that the aircraft had overshot the runway by 200 metres and ‘it is too early to arrive at conclusions but the fact is that the aircraft had overshot the runway, which is 8038 feet long’, reports said.
(Based on internet reports)
