Aircraft touched down after 5000 ft, Pilot suffered from sleep inertia

New Delhi: The Court of Inquiry (CoI) into the Mangalore air crash has concluded that the pilot in command was at fault, including the fact that he was sleepy. The inquiry into the country's worst air tragedy of the decade that claimed 158 lives has established that Captain Z Glusica, the pilot in command of the Air India Express flight IX-812 from Dubai to Mangalore on May 22, reacted late and also, many standard operating procedures were not followed during landing.
The report has stated the plane touched down at Runway 24 of the Mangalore airport, which is approximately 8,000 feet long, when it had already crossed over 5,000 feet of the tabletop runway. With less than 3,000 feet of runway left, the pilots tried to take off again --only to crash into a gorge.
Experts have concluded that despite the limited runway left, had the pilot applied emergency brakes and not attempted to take off again, the plane could have been brought to a halt. The plane's takeoff gear was found activated.
The CoI has stated Glusica, an expatriate, was asleep for over 1 hour 40 minutes of the three-hour flight and "disoriented" at the time when the plane started to descend. Sources said Glusica was suffering from "sleep inertia".
The report was submitted to civil aviation minister Praful Patel on Tuesday and would be tabled in the Parliament. It has suggested several steps including "hard landing" and medical check-ups to avert such mishaps.
16/11/10 Tushar Srivastava/Hindustan Times

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