Aircraft skid: Cochin airport passes the buck to AAI

Kochi: The Cochin airport authorities have blamed the Airport Authority of India (AII) for poor air traffic management that resulted in two aircraft skidding off the runway early this month.
“The AAI has to install the Approach Surveillance Radar (ASR) at the airport and the same is being continuously pursued by the CIAL. The early installation of ASR would definitely improve the quality of the air traffic management,” Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) managing director S Bharat said. About 60 passengers and the crew of an Air Sahara (Jet Lite) Delhi-Bangalore-Kochi flight had a miraculous escape after it skidded off the runway on July 3.
On July 9 an Air India Express (AIE) aircraft that arrived from Muscat with 61 passengers including an infant onboard. The Air Sahara flight landed with its right wheel on the edge of the runway but the pilot managed to bring back the aircraft to the runway.
, the AIE’s Muscat-Thiruvananthapuram-Kochi flight skidded off the runway and went off some 200m, damaging its nose-wheel while its left engine sucked in mud and grass.
Bharat said the incidents were not due to any technical fault in the runway construction, runway lighting or the air navigations systems installed at the airport. The communication navigation system and air traffic management are the responsibilities of the AAI.
“In fact, on both the occasions the pilots could not see the runway at the time of landing due to the sudden heavy downpour of rain on their wind shields at the last moments of landing, and that could have been the most probable cause of the incident,” he said in a statement.
Bharat said, in both cases, the pilots never blamed the airport systems or infrastructure set up at the airport. Rather, they said the aircraft were manoeuvred and brought back to the runway because of the strength and upkeep of the side strips of the runway, which resulted in the safe rolling of the aircraft to the runway and then to the parking bay without any structural damages.
15/07/07 Ashraf Padanna/Gulf Times, Qatar

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: Airports Jul 2007, Safety Jul 2007