The Hindu : Kerala / Kochi News : Concern over landing accidents

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 11, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala - Kochi

Concern over landing accidents

Staff Reporter

KOCHI: The recurrence of landing-related accidents has raised concern among authorities of the Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL).

Flight, IX 454, operating in the Muscat-Thiruvananthapuram-Kochi sector with 61 passengers aboard had skidded off the runway while landing on Monday night. This was the second such incident in a span of five days An Air Sahara flight from Delhi was involved in a similar incident at the Cochin airport last Tuesday.

The Instrumental Landing System (ILS) and the runway lighting at the airport is capable of facilitating landing even when the visibility is restricted to 800 metres, a senior airport official said.

The malfunctioning of the ILS has been ruled out, for in that case the pilot would have opted for diversion, an airline official also concurred.

However, sometimes when the weather is relatively fair and the flight had descended to a point beyond which the pilot could not possibly abort the landing, sudden rain might virtually blind the pilot, the airport official pointed out.

It is under such circumstances that incidents like runway-overshoot occur, he said.

According to him, this was the main reason for the landing accidents in both the cases at the Cochin airport recently.

Maintenance of runway

He also ruled out the poor maintenance of runway as the reason for the occurrence of such incidents as pointed out by some sections.

“We undertake annual inspection of the runway in accordance with the Airports Authority of India specifications and it is being properly maintained,” the airport official said.

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