MUMBAI: Pilot error and a failure to follow safety guidelines probably caused the Air India Express crash that killed 21 people last year, the country’s worst aviation accident in a decade, investigators said in a report on Saturday.
The Boeing 737, repatriating Indians stranded in Dubai due to the coronavirus pandemic, overshot the table-top runway and crashed while landing at Calicut International Airport in the southern state of Kerala in heavy rain on Aug. 8, 2020.
“The probable cause of the accident was the non-adherence to standard operating procedures by the pilot flying,” says the report by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, a division of the Ministry of Civil Aviation that probes plane accidents.
The pilot “continued an unstabilized approach and landed beyond the touchdown zone, halfway down the runway,” instead of doing a “go around,” the agency says in the 257-page report, published after a year-long investigation.
A go-around is a standard procedure in which the pilot abandons a landing attempt deemed unsafe and tries again.
In spite of being asked to go around by the pilot monitoring the landing, the pilot flying the aircraft failed to do so, the agency said, and the monitoring pilot also failed to take over the controls and execute the order.
The aircraft had already made one failed attempt to land before it overran the 2,700-meter (8,900-foot) runway. The airport is known as a table-top because its runways have steep drops at one or both ends.
The crash at the airport in Kozhikode was India’s worst passenger aircraft accident since 2010, when another Air India Express flight from Dubai overshot a table-top runway in Mangalore, a city in the south, and slid down a hill, killing 158 people.
Pilot error likely caused fatal Air India Express crash: Report
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Pilot error likely caused fatal Air India Express crash: Report
- The Boeing 737overshot the table-top runway and crashed while landing at Calicut International Airport
- In spite of being asked to go around by the pilot monitoring the landing, the pilot flying the aircraft failed to do so
Indonesia reaffirms Yemen’s territorial integrity, backs stability efforts amid tensions
- Statement comes after Saudi Arabia bombed a UAE weapons shipment at Yemeni port city
- Jakarta last week said it ‘appreciates’ Riyadh ‘working together’ with Yemen to restore stability
JAKARTA: Indonesia has called for respect for Yemen’s territorial integrity and commended efforts to maintain stability in the region, a day after Saudi Arabia bombed a weapons shipment from the UAE at a Yemeni port city that Riyadh said was intended for separatist forces.
Saudi Arabia carried out a “limited airstrike” at Yemen’s port city of Al-Mukalla in the southern province of Hadramout on Tuesday, following the arrival of an Emirati shipment that came amid heightened tensions linked to advances by the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council in the war-torn country.
In a statement issued late on Wednesday, the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it “appreciates further efforts by concerned parties to maintain stability and security,” particularly in the provinces of Hadramout and Al-Mahara.
“Indonesia reaffirms the importance of peaceful settlement through an inclusive and comprehensive political dialogue under the coordination of the United Nations and respecting Yemen’s legitimate government and territorial integrity,” Indonesia’s foreign affairs ministry said.
The latest statement comes after Jakarta said last week that it “appreciates the efforts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as other relevant countries, working together with Yemeni stakeholders to de-escalate tensions and restore stability.”
Saudi Arabia leads the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen, which includes the UAE and was established in 2015 to combat the Houthi rebels, who control most of northern Yemen.
Riyadh has been calling on the STC, which initially supported Yemen’s internationally recognized government against the Houthi rebels, to withdraw after it launched an offensive against the Saudi-backed government troops last month, seeking an independent state in the south.
Indonesia has also urged for “all parties to exercise restraint and avoid unilateral action that could impact security conditions,” and has previously said that the rising tensions in Yemen could “further deteriorate the security situation and exacerbate the suffering” of the Yemeni people.
Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country, maintains close ties with both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are its main trade and investment partners in the Middle East.
