Plane crash in south India -Manglore

[Arun_S]

[url="http://ibnlive.in.com/printpage.php?id=115977&section_id=3"]Mangalore air crash: timeline of the mishap[/url]

Neelu Vyas CNN-IBN

New Delhi: The country woke up Saturday morning to one of the deadliest air tragedies in Mangalore. Air India Express flight 812 from Dubai to Mangalore, carrying 166 passengers, got completely burnt, killing 158 people and eight miraculous survivors.



Timeline of the mishap



At 2am on the 22nd of May the ill-fated Air India Express flight 812 took off from Dubai International Airport. Captain Glusica, a Serbian expat, was in charge.



It's a four-and-a-half hour long flight to Mangalore. The flight was scheduled to touch down at about 6.30 in the morning.



There were 166 passengers on board -- 137 adults, 19 children, four infants and six crew members. Most of them were from Kerala, heading back from the Gulf, each with a date to keep with their loved ones.



As the narrow-bodied Boeing 737-800 approached the table-top runway at Mangalore, the winds were calm, it's a bit cloudy. But visibility was clear upto six kilometres.



Captain Glusica and his co-pilot Captain SS Ahluwalia were cleared by Mangalore airport to approach for landing. About 10 miles short of the runway, the plane switched over to the Instrument Landing System.



What happened next is a mystery at the moment. The aircraft hit the tarmac about 2000 feet beyond its touchdown point. That proved fatal for the aircraft as it simply did not have enough runway left to break its speed.



The plane hit a fence, broke through the airport boundary wall and fell into the gorge beyond, breaking into two and catching fire on impact.



Of the 166 people on board, 158 perished but there is a miraculous escape for eight passengers.



Reports suggest that the Air Traffic Control received no distress signal in the moments before landing. So the reason for one of the country's worst aviation disasters is still a mystery.

[url="http://ibnlive.in.com/news/what-really-went-wrong-in-mangalore-crash/115975-3.html?from=tn"]What really went wrong in Mangalore?[/url]

Posted on May 22, 2010 at 21:36 | Updated May 22, 2010 at 22:46Mangalore: So what really went wrong that the Air India Express aircraft crashed at the Mangalore airport, killing 158 people on Saturday morning. According to survivors, eyewitnesses and ATC sources, the problems started after the aircraft started landing. It looks like the aircraft went out of control.



At around 6:00 am on Saturday, four miles short of the runway, the Air Traffic Controller cleared the pilot for touchdown. The pilot acknowledged. This was the last communication between the pilot and the ATC.



The pilot was landing on ILS or the Instrument landing System, which has two features, the Localiser which aligns the plane to the centre of the runway and the Glide scope which helps the pilot to set his angle of approach.



ATC sources told CNN-IBN that the pilot was flying much above the appropriate approach angle which could be why the plane touched down 2000 feet beyond the actual touchdown point on the runway. This left the pilot with only 5000 feet to bring the plane to a halt.



Former Director General of Civil Aviation, Kanu Gohain, said: "The pilot says established on ILS. That means he is in line with the runway and he is on the glide slope. As he was following those signals on the ILS, he should have touched down exactly at the ILS touchdown point at 1000. You are in touchdown point and another 2000 to 5000 ft is the available length of the runway. Still that could have been used to stop the plane by using the braking system and thrust reversals. At the most, the plane would have gone beyond that runway and stooped in the runway end safety area."



Soon after touchdown, the ATC made the routine request for the plane to back track towards the terminal but got no answer. Survivor accounts also suggest that within seconds of touching down one of the tyres of the aircraft might have burst.



Omar Farooq, a survivor, said: "Tyre burst while landing so the plane skidded of the runway, hit the boundary wall and exploded. The plane cracked open and I jumped out. I ran almost 500 mts and people later rushed to a hospital. I have suffered injuries but I'm okay."



The plane then hit an ILS antenna, rammed the boundary wall and fell right into the gorge ahead. Experts say there are many questions that need to be answered.



H S Khola asked what was the weight of the aircraft, what was the length of the runway and was it safe enough to land in that much length? What was the touchdown speed of the aircraft and was the deceleration system working fully?"



Gohain further said: "When the investigation is carried on it has to be established from the flight data recorder at what point he touched down, how much in the runway he had had and what was the engine power at that time. What was the speed at the time of touchdown? These are the parameters which have to be considered to establish why the pilot could not stop the plane within the available length of the runway."



Most of these may be answered when the flight data recorder or Black Box is recovered.