An Air India Express aircraft from Dubai has overshot the runway while landing at the Mangalore airport. The plane has crashed and rescue work is on.

The flight reportedly had 156 passengers, 6 crew members.

According to Airport official Peter Abraham, rescue work is on and high casualty rate is expected. Further details are awaited regarding the incident which occurred at around 6 30 am.

The plane is on fire and smoke was seen coming out of the airport.

LINK TO VIDEO OF LANDING IN MANGALORE

Some of my Trainees fly on that route with Air India Express as Flight Stewards. I hope they weren't on this flight..........................

Really sad to know about this. Saw a video of a rescue team rescuing a 11 year girl who later died as her head was burnt up. So sad to see this 

why is this video in this post

To show how small the landing ground is ... for mangalore airport

Yea... It is a small one... How sad... 

 From the video, the approach path of the runway is pretty straight. Reports suggest tyres burst... wait for NTSB report..
Hope both the Indian Airlines and Indian Air Force stop flying 'Flying Coffins' ( non airworthy planes).

Condolences to the families affected

The TV channels are reporting that the plane landed well after the usual touchdown zone.  It is not clear if the pilot realized that he cannot get the ground speed to bleed down with the amount of runway left and tried to throttle up and take off again.

Ya, rumors are bad.

Some say he exceeded the runway.
Some say the tyre was on fire.
Some say the tyre burst during landing.
Some say the plane crashed 5 minutes before landing.

All the above I heard from TV9 itself. And they were not allowing the survivor to speak to the media.

They (TV9)  may even blame on R/c Radio interference for the crash  



Sanjay

if you notice at 2.11 point of the video, it is a table top runway with a steep descent immediately after the runway ends. Could not have been the best news for the ill fated flight after it overshot. News reports are claiming an ILS approach and a perfect touchdown.....sad to see it end this way after 99.9% of the things went right!! God bless the departed souls and give strength to their family members...

hi guys i have made a recreation of what might have happened on my fs x with an a320 overshoot the mangalore airoport runway. i dont get it how to upload it here as it is in fsr format

and yes this was a sad one condolences to all those affected

subbu

yes!!condolence to the affected families..i fail to understand why the government even built such a stupid runway in the first place?..its to risky..with valleys on either side..it would be any pilots nightmare to land there...is mangalore short of even a few kms of land to build a proper runway or is it just our corrupt politicians as usual?..i wonder...this news saddens me

Flying-g,
even though the runway was elevated on a platform like thing, 8K feet is more than adequate for jets this size and infact much more than adequate. There would be far more challenging strips to land on in India and around than the mangalore strip(Leh, Kathmandu etc)...and the runway cannot be blamed. These were pilots with 10,000 and 3600 flying hours respectively and so should have been no problem with 6KM visibility and an ILS aided approach. It is best to wait for the investigations to determine what actually happened.....

Saw this incident in the morning on TV and am very sad with what has happened. However, taking into account the report where they say that the flight overshot the runway, the pictures show the aircraft to be heavily damaged, I just want to know what is there at the end of the runway at Mangalore airport and does it comply with the international standards. Just a query.

there are two runways at the airport right? was this on the newer one?

I agree, but you know when there is a crime and even the police does not come to rescue/gets delayed. These are the guys who take things into hand and help out. Better than Police?

The newly constructed Runway was under repair. This was the old runway.
Yes, Tabletop runways are no exception for civil aviation. May hilly airports like Shimla, Leh, Kathmandu in nearby areas and those in Latin America, Japan etc are very much practical.

Lets wait for the report..  

List of Passengers and crew

http://in.news.yahoo.com/48/20100522/804/tnl-ia-plane-crash-full-list-of-casualti.html

I am extremely sad and hurt that this has happened.But,don't pilots have a decision height(I got all of this info from microsoft flight simulator X and also,with a perfect ILS approach,nothing should have gone wrong.The investigations will reveal much more but my codolences to the people who lost family and friends on that flight.If the pilots overshot their actual landing spot by 2000 feet,they should have aborted the landing earlier.Either it was instrument failure with the ILS being improper or something on the aircraft or pilot error.But,very sad that this had to happen to highlight the conditions at mangalore.

Table top or not isn't a big deal.  Any time the aircraft overshoots the runway, you are in for uncertain times in terms of fire damage !  Being non-table-top probably helps a little with the nature of injuries and casualties count, that's all. 

The Kozhikode (Calicut) airport in Kerala to which we fly often to is a table top too, sitting between small hills.

From 3rd Nov 1950 to today, Air India have killed 786 Peoples...

The touchdown was 200 feets(abt 90 mtrs)  inside the runway start said Air India Staff to press.

So there is a point to think about the ATC, Who may failed to monitor the plane(and its altitude, slope, speed and distance from runway)...

How do they allow the airport to be used when it was only approved for the A320 in the 90s which is smaller plane and needs less space to land.

Also the run of area is way to little and some amount of netting would have averted the quantum of damage or size of the tragedy.

Let the souls of the victims rest in peace and god give strength to their near & dear ones to over come their loss.

@ ujjwal, this plane if not old and is part of the newer planes and it may be only about 4-5 yrs old
 

"My codolences to the people who lost Family and Friends on that flight"

same here...

Could an arrestor net at the end of runway prevented this tragedy?

you can guess the momentum of the plane, even its at a speed of .5 kmph..
i think no..yes, smthing like that can be made from carbon nanotubes in near future, but again you can guess what will happen to the plane..

two major accidents in just a span of few months..
its sad..   

I think the arrrestor net will take some time because it will have to incorporate an arrestor hook like we see on the FA18hornet flown by the US navy and other countries.Instead,we can  have a patch of runway at the far end which as been made using aerated concrete.The weight of the plane will stop it.This is done in other international airports.If aerated concrete is expensive,they can use a sand trap.Even that should help.The weight of the aircraft should stop it.

Latest news is pilot tried at last moment for TO/GA(Takeoff/Go around) and even some times experienced pilots do the mistakes and one thing i can say is B737 series is a back bone of commercial aviation for every minute in the world  somewhere one B737 will take off.
and another thing is b737 has very less ground clearence around 8"-12" from ground to intake of the engine!!!!! Even if aircraft banks 1ft or one tire burns out what happens think yourself!!!

We cannot blame Crews,Aircraft,Runway,anything until FDR/CVR data is retrieved .

And plane is very new about 2 1/2 year old and one of my friend was working on that!

Read the details in the newspaper today. There are two runways at Mangalore airport, old one(5000ft) and new one about 8000ft(cant remember the exact lengths), this ill fated AI aircraft landed on the new runway which although not very long was sufficient for a 737-800. The aircraft touched down at about 3000ft from the threshold point which is about half the runway length, the ideal touch down point is about 1000 ft(again i cant remember the exact values). Secondly, since this airport is on a plateau there were no buffer zones at the end of the runway.

As Rohit has said, that was the old, shorter, runway. I had a long chat with an aeromodeling buddy, who is also a pilot. He says the present runway is long enough for a touchdown 2,000 feet from  the threshold. Most likely he has come in too fast. He gave me a fascinating insight on alternate scenarios. Can post details if of interest. A bit technical, though.

ok guys here is the details of crashed plane
http://www.dgca.gov.in/caris/know_ind.htm
type AXV after VT-
@sushil im intrested

please send me the details as mentioned.

Even i would like to know the details of the alternate scenario.

GUys,
it was a ILS assisted flight so the plane overshooting is surely a technuical fault either in the plane or the runway..

No its was purely VFR flight if u want to use ILS than visibility should be less than 700mtrs but there was a visibility of 6kms and one thing i can make sure ground equipment can never go fault either it will be fully unserviceble or serviceble!
 
i think it was purely due to pilot error or misjudge!

Some reports state the flight was on ILS! further:
"Even on Sunday — the day after the crash — a NOTAM (notice to airmen) was issued that read as follows: “ILS was operational but awaiting flight calibration. Pilots to exercise caution while using ILS.”

"Explaining the incident further, Kanu Gohain, the former director general of civil aviation, said that the pilot communicated that he was in line with the runway and that he was on the Glide Scope."

And even if on-ground visibility was 6kms, verticzal visibility can be way different!!
I dont say it cant be pilot error. AI has an order for smooth landing for full load aircraft, in which case it will touch down further. But any experienced Pilot will not commit that mistake on a short runway! and Mangalore is classified as "critical" (sorry i dont recall the exact word here) Like Leh, Srinagar, Cochin.

There are some Pilots in this forum, they can provide us some insight!!

If i remember correctly same incident took place in 2005 with Air france 358 where i agree purely because of bad wether but still there was a pilot error ,where in that case while approach speedbrakes was not armed and auto brakes not engaged and even after landing speed brakes was not deployed and after touch down they took 8 secs to engage thrust reverser ! in jet planes travelling at speed of hundreds of kilometer 8 secs is more than enough to comit suscide! >
once i was flying with my friend who was pilot (C182)! while landing i was about hit the wall and suddenly applied the brakes for our luck it stopped otherwise i was history!and my friend said i will never give u control again u be a AME and ill be Pilot! funny fellow

Finally, the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) was just recovered.  The mystery shall be fully revealed soon, we hope.

This is one of the scenarios my pilot friend spoke about. The interesting part was the information that The speed brakes will deploy ONLY after the aircraft has "settled" on the undercarriage, i.e. the oleos are depressed. If he has come in fast and bounced, these would not function.

As for mpp's post re: glide slope, even if the ILS was not fully calibrated, an experienced pilot would - or should - have been able to realise that he was way over the threshold. The pilot I spoke to has landed at Mangalore, several times and considers the length to be adequate for a touch down 2,000 feet beyond the threshold.