Kozhikode: Preliminary investigations in the Karipur airport tragedy, which killed 18 including both the pilots on Friday, point towards the twin effect of overshooting and aquaplaning as possible reasons for the tragedy.
Overshooting is when the plane conducts touchdown further away on the runway than where it was supposed to. Whereas, aquaplaning occurs when a layer of water builds between the wheels of the vehicle and the road surface, leading to a loss of traction that prevents the vehicle from responding to control inputs.
Usually flights landing in Kozhikode touch down between 300m to 900m on the runway, however, officials claim that the ill-fated AIE flight (IX-1344) touched down more than 1 km away on the runway.
Investigators on Saturday recovered the Digital Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder, collectively called the black box, from the ill-fated Boeing 737 that could provide vital clues in the crash of the Air India Express flight.
The AIE flight from Dubai with 190 people on board including a 6-member crew overshot the table-top runway on Friday night while landing at the international airport in Karipur, about 30 km from here, in neighbouring Malappuram district and fell into a valley 35 feet below and broke into two portions.
“Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is conducting the investigations," Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted, as fresh questions were raised on the safety parameters of the runway.
An official of aviation regulator DGCA said the DFDR and the CVR will be taken to Delhi for further investigations by the AAIB.
The CVR keeps a recording of all the conversations that takes place in a plane's cockpit and along with DFDR that has a record of flight data such as airspeed, altitude and fuel flow can help in finding out the cause of the crash, the official said.
As investigators carried out the probe, an Airports Authority of India (AAI) spokesperson said runway 28 was in use and in the first landing attempt the pilot could not sight the runway and requested for runway 10.
The pilot then steered the plane to runway 10 and came from the other side, according to an AAI official.
Citing information from the Air Traffic Controller (ATC), the spokesperson said the aircraft touched down near taxiway 'C', which is approximately 1,000 metres from the beginning of runway 10. The total length of the runway is 2,700 metres.
The spokesperson also said that it was raining over the airfield and reported visibility at the time of landing was 2,000 metres.
Aviation safety expert Captain Ranganathan, who had earlier flagged concerns about Kozhikode airport runway, said the DGCA should not allow landing of flights during monsoon on runway 10 at the aerodrome.
In 2011, he had warned that flights landing on runway 10 in tailwind conditions in rain at the Kozhikode airport endanger the lives of people onboard those flights.
AAI Chairman Arvind Singh said "corrective action" will be taken after receiving the probe report.
While the toll was put at 17 on Friday, it rose to 18 with the death of one more person, Malappuram District Collector K Gopalakrishnan said.
According to the official list released by him, four of the deceased were children -- three girls and a one-year old boy -- and seven men and an equal number of women. Two girls were aged two and the other was five.
"Currently, 149 people are in various hospitals of Malappuram and Kozhikode, out of which 23 are in critical condition. Earlier, 23 were discharged after being provided initial medical assistance," Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said.
The chief minister along with state Governor Arif Mohammad Khan visited the injured at the Kozhikode Medical College hospital.
