The Air India Express Pilot who overshot the aircraft out of the runway and into the grass at Mangaluru airport on June 30, will face a suspension for one year, PTI reported. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) suspended the license of the pilot in question for a year and noted that the one year period will be counted from the day of the incident. It is worth noting that the flight which was overshot on the runway was travelling from Dubai to Mangaluru and the flight number was IX-384.
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Pilot Made Late Touchdown on Runway: Sources
The source of the report said, "The final investigation by the regulator has found that the final approach of the B737 aircraft was ''unstabilised''. The aircraft speed was high and it touched down late, around 900 metres (2,952 feet) from the threshold area of runway 24, which resulted in runway excursion and damage to the aircraft.”
The threshold area comes after the beginning of the runway, and following that is the touchdown area where the plane is supposed to land during a safe landing. However, pilot, Captain Pravin Tumram landed ahead of the touchdown area, thus leading to this incident.
Dejavu for Mangaluru Airport
The curious thing to note is that the Mangaluru airport has seen a very similar incident 9 years ago, on the same runway with an aircraft from Air India only. The incident happened on May 22, 2010, where an Air India Express flight coming from Dubai overshot the runway 24, hit the boundary fence and fell into a gorge killing 152 passengers on board, six crew members and leaving only 8 survivors. As per the court of enquiry set up by the government, the reason for the crash was pilot-in-command's failure to discontinue the ''unstabilised approach'' and his persistence in continuing with landing even though he received three calls from the first officer to ''go around'' including many warnings from the enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS).
The Court of enquiry had found that the pilot had overshot about 5200 ft (1584 metres) from the beginning of runway 24, leaving only about 2800 feet for the flight to stop.
