Pilots land flight on ‘wrong’ end of runway, get de-rostered
Saurabh.Sinha@timesgroup.com
New Delhi:25.10.2021
Two SpiceJet pilots have been de-rostered after they landed a Hyderabad-Belgaum flight on the wrong end of the runway at the destination on Sunday. Aviation authorities have taken a stern view of this lapse as the crew allegedly did not report this and operated the DASH8 Q400 back to Hyderabad.
It was only when Airports Authority of India (AAI) reported this “serious incident” that SpiceJet informed the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB) about the same, investigators probing the matter said. However, by then crucial cockpit voice recorder (CVR) recording at the time of this incident was gone as CVR records in a loop, keeping only the last two hours of conversation in the flight deck, they added. “Air traffic control had cleared SpiceJet DASH8 Q400 aircraft (VT-SQC) operating SG-3733 to land on runway 26 at Belgaum. However, the pilots landed on runway 08 (meaning, it touched down on the other end of the runway instead of the designated end),” said a senior official.
The aircraft landed at 11.30am on the unassigned runway. “While this was serious enough, the pilots committed an even bigger mistake by not informing about the same. They flew back to Hyderabad and went home. Only after AAI informed about this, did SpiceJet inform AAIB at 3.37pm (four hours after the wrong landing),” said a senior investigator. Belgaum-Hyderabad journey time is 1 hour and 40 minutes. Operating the return flight meant that the CVR recording at the time of wrong landing may have “washed out as the tape can record up to two hours only”.
The incident has been categorised as a serious one and AAIB will probe this. “Spice-Jet chief pilot spoke to AAIB officials and the latter have asked the crew of this flight to appear for investigation on Monday,” said a source.
Full report on www.toi.in
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