Mumbai ATC, airlines deny DGCA issued guidelines

Mumbai: Three landing fiascos at the Mumbai airport and still nobody knows who should be blamed. After the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) removed six pilots from the rosters of three airlines, the aviation regulator is now being targeted.
According to the DGCA, the pilots had violated guidelines while landing on a short runway at Mumbai airport under rainy conditions. One of the planes was of Kingfisher Airlines - an ATR aircraft - which skidded and overshot the runway on Wednesday. Fortunately nobody was injured.
However, the airline said its flight from Bhavnagar did not receive any notification advising or alerting its aircraft of any special conditions prevailing on the runway. That also seemed to be the comments coming from the other airlines.
Now, the Mumbai Air Traffic Controller (ATC) has joined the issue. It says the DGCA issued no advisory with regards to wet runway before the Kingfisher mishap.
The aviation watchdog had earlier cracked down on erring pilots for violating guidelines for landing on wet runways. It grounded six pilots from three airlines, for near-misses at the Mumbai airport. The incident forced the DGCA to de-roster not only the two pilots of Kingfisher but four other pilots also for violating the wet runway operation norms at the airport.
12/11/09 Pankaj Upadhyay & Manoj Sharma/India Today

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Categories: Airports Nov 2009, Safety Nov 2009