No Wide Body Planes Till End of Monsoon in Kozhikode
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has temporarily banned wide-body aircraft operations at the Kozhikode airport, days after an Air India Express jetliner crashed after skidding off the runway amid adverse weather conditions.
The suspension will continue till the end of the monsoon season in Kerala, a senior official at the aviation regulator said on Tuesday, requesting anonymity.
On Sunday, an Airbus 330 plane operated by a Saudi Arabian airline was diverted to the Kochi airport in the state from Kozhikode, the official said.
Landing planes on tabletop runways, which are located on the top of a hill or a plateau with deep gorges running down their sides, such as the one at Kozhikode, is a tough task for pilots in poor weather conditions.
It is even more difficult to land bigger wide-body jets.
The crash of the Air India Express flight in Kozhikode airport on Friday night has killed 18 people.
A very similar accident at the tabletop airport in Mangalore in 2010 had claimed the lives of 158 people.
Both crashes involved an Air India Express-operated Boeing 737-800, a narrow body or a single-aisle plane. Air India Ltd, the parent of Air India Express, has operated its Boeing 747 and 777 aircraft from the Kozhikode airport.
Wide-body aircraft operations were, however, discontinued at the Mangalore airport after the 2010 crash.
Meanwhile, the aviation regulator will also conduct a special audit of airports across the country affected by heavy rains, DGCA chief Arun Kumar told Reuters on Tuesday.
“We will conduct additional checks at major, busy airports across India that are affected by the monsoon rains," Kumar said. “We will review everything—the condition of the runway, its incline, the lighting as well as drainage."
Kumar said the special audit would be over and above the DGCA’s routine checks and could cover a dozen airports, including those in Chennai, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Mumbai, all of which receive heavy rains each year.
———
©2020 the Mint (New Delhi)
Visit the Mint (New Delhi) at www.livemint.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.