The Air India Express crash in Mangalore in May 2010 was caused due to the captain's failure to “discontinue the un-stabilised approach'' and continuing with the landing despite three calls from the First Officer to “go around.”
This has been brought out by the Court of Inquiry report that has now been made public. The report adds that “in spite of availability of adequate rest period prior to the flight,” the Captain was in prolonged sleep during the flight which could have led to sleep inertia.
The crash resulted in the death of 158 passengers. The Boeing 737-800 aircraft was commanded by Capt Z. Glucia, a Serbian pilot with 10,200 hours of flying experience. Capt H. S. Ahluwalia, who was the co-pilot, was based in Mangalore and had 3,650 hours of flying experience.
The report adds that probably in view of the ambiguity in various instructions empowering the co-pilot to initiate a ‘go-around', the First Officer gave repeated calls to this effect but did not take over the controls to actually discontinue the ill-fated approach.
Since the crash, many changes have come in the domestic civil aviation sector. In the last few days, new rules have come into force that lay down stringent rest periods for pilots operating flights of varying durations.
In addition, the Airports Authority of India has carried out the changes at Mangalore airport, as recommended by the report.
A senior AAI official confirmed the development and said a status report on the improvements had been sent to the Government about six weeks ago.