Recently, an Air India Express plane coming from Dubai crashed in the South Indian state of Kerala after skidding off the runway and breaking into two while landing at Kozhikode Calicut International Airport.
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The plane was one of the repatriation flights operated by the Indian government to bring back nationals stranded abroad due to Covid-19 travel restrictions.
To understand what could have caused the crash, there could be the following three possibilities.
- Firstly, pilots have to undergo training atleast twice a year and after that they are evaluated as ‘fit’ to fly an airplane. But this year due to COVID-19 the training which is conducted with the help of simulators was cancelled till September 30, which means that those who were ‘not fit’ to fly could end by also end up piloting the airplanes.
- Another purported reason could be mental stress for the pilots. It was recently declared that all pilots will undergo a salary cut of 60 per cent. The suggested salary reduction would be enforced from April 1. This could have put the pilots under immense mental stress.
- Thirdly, the Karipur airport runway at which this accident happened is called the ‘table top runway’, it has lights in the middle which is called ‘center light’ to give a better estimate of the runway while landing. But there was no such light on this runway. This is called the ‘Black Hole Approach’. The runway is dangerous and large aircraft do not land at this airport.
Air India Express is a wholly owned subsidiary of Air India, according to its website. It operates 25 Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft.
