Clueless about runway, pilots put 150 flyers at risk in blind landing

INSTEAD OF DIVERTING TO ANOTHER AIRPORT, THE PILOTS ATTEMPTED LANDING SIX TIMES

AND CAME CLOSE TO RUNNING OUT OF FUEL

General of Civil Aviation submitted to the government last week.

They could have diverted the flight to a safe airport, instead of attempting to land in bad weather., an official said.

The report, accessed by HT, gives details of what went on in the cockpit as the pilots of flight 9W-555 declared “May Day” and managed to land only in the seventh attempt afterdoinganunprecedentedsixgoarounds — a flight path taken by an aircraft after an aborted approach to land — in two airports.

“Do you know where it (runway) is?” the first officer is heard asking in the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) as the pilots made a seventh attempt to land.

“Just going blindly,” the captain replied. The captain was demoted to the rank of co-pilot after the incident, which is classified as “serious”. The pilots didn’t respond to attempts for their comments.

The Boeing 737 was left with 349kg of fuel when it landed, burning most of it during the six go-arounds. An aircraft needs up to 150kg of fuel during taxiing itself.

Had the pilots gone for another go-around, the plane would have crashed because there was not enough fuel left, officials said.

When the Jet flight reached Cochin airspace it had 4,844kg of fuel. It made three attempts to land in Cochin, but could not make visual contact with the runway and the fuel went down to 4,699kg, 3,919kg and 2,644kg in each attempt.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 >>SEE GRAPHIC ON PAGE 11