Risky approach: Air India suspends 2 pilots

NEW DELHI : An Air India flight from New Delhi to Hong Kong came within 200 feet of the sea while still being some 2.6 nautical miles from the runway before the pilots pulled up, an incident that has now led the airline to suspend the two officers commanding the aircraft.

The action came after the Hong Kong airport issued a Serious Incident Bulletin on Wednesday, describing how the aircraft – a Boeing 787 with 207 people on board – deviated from its landing path and descended too rapidly.

“On October 20, an Air India Boeing on its flight from New Delhi, descended rapidly while approaching the Hong Kong airport and deviated significantly from the normal glide path triggering a Ground Proximity Warning System alert,” the report said, adding: “The crew then recovered the aircraft at about 200 feet before performing a go around [aborted landing]”.

The report is based on the statements of the flight crew, aircraft flight documents, maintenance records, flight data, and the weather information.

The report notes that the pilots had been warned about possible signal fluctuations that could lead to problems in the automated landing guidance system – the system that draws up a “glide path” guiding the plane to the point of touch down.

Aviation safety expert Mohan Ranganathan said the incident suggests the pilots were blindly following the glide path. He said 200 feet — roughly the height of a 15-storey building — was too low and at 2.6 nautical miles from the runway, they should have been at 800 feet. “This shows lack of situational awareness from the pilots and the distance and height should have been crosschecked.”