After vibration, Air India pilots skip Kozhikode table-top runway, land in Kochi with 188 on board

After vibration, Air India pilots skip Kozhikode table-top runway, land in Kochi with 188 on board

Saurabh.Sinha@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:13.04.2021

A “vibration” during takeoff at Riyadh led two pilots in the cockpit of an Air India Express flight to Kerala’s Kozhikode choose Kochi as a “safer” landing option over the destination airport’s tricky table-top runway, where a Boeing 737-800 of the same airline had overshot the strip and crashlanded last August killing killing 19 passengers and both the pilots.

Just before IX-1322 became airborne late on Saturday with 188 people, Captain Yazad Bachaa and first officer Nishad Arawandakar had experienced a “small jolt...a wobble” that indicated trouble with the landing gear or tyres.

Since all flight parameters were otherwise normal, they decided to continue flying, though with one crucial change — diverting the flight to Kochi to avoid landing on the table-top runway at Kozhikode with a possible snag. The flight landed safely in Kochi early on Sunday.

AI Express arranged another aircraft hours later to fly the passengers to Kozhikode. “We are proud of the way the pilots handled the situation,” airline sources said.

While touchdown was uneventful, tyre fragments were strewn across the runway. The rubber portion of the right tyre in the main landing gear had completely disintegrated. Once it was confirmed there was no fire, the 180 passengers, six-member cabin crew and the two pilots deplaned using a stepladder.

After reaching cruising altitude of 35,000 ft following take-off, the pilots had contacted Riyadh air traffic control and asked them to check if tyre pieces had been found on the runway. Officials confirmed shortly afterwards that there were some fragments, though they couldn’t say if they were from the AI Express Boeing 737-800.

Making best use of “crew resource management”, the pilot-in-command called two special passengers to the cockpit – the captain and co-pilot who had flown the same aircraft on its journey from India to Saudi Arabia. The four pilots brainstormed and worked out likely scenarios involving tyre trouble. It was then that Captain Bachaa decided to divert to Kochi because of its longer runway and clear weather.

RISK PRONE: In August 2020, an AI Express Boeing 737-800 overshot the Kozhikode runway and crashlanded killing 21 people