Air India flight lands with Emergency Support

An Air India aircraft, with 123 passengers on board, made a safe landing at the international airport here with ‘full emergency support' on Tuesday afternoon after the pilot detected a snag in the hydraulic system.

The commander of the Chennai-Bangalore-Thiruvananthapuram flight alerted the Air Traffic Control as the A-310 aircraft was approaching Thiruvananthapuram around 12.15 noon. He sought emergency support, which was immediately made available, airport sources said.

Security agencies and the city police were also alerted. Airline sources said the aircraft landed safely at 12.24 noon. It moved to the parking bay on its own and hence the snag could not be a major one, officials said. The passengers were evacuated. The aircraft has been grounded and engineers are working to rectify the snag.

In November last, flight operations from the international airport came to a standstill after an AI aircraft with 80 passengers and two infants got stuck in the middle of the runway while making an emergency landing.

Flight 915, bound for Dammam in Saudi Arabia, returned after the commander got a warning of snag in the aircraft doors. The A-330 aircraft made a ‘hard landing' and in the process got struck, forcing the airport authorities to close the airport.

Courtesy :  The Hindu

Damaged aircraft removed from runway without emptying fuel

KOCHI: The Gulf Air flight which skidded off runway at Kochi airport on Monday morning was removed on Tuesday morning from the slush where it remained stuck after the mishap, paving the way for making the runway completely operational. Though in such situations, the aircraft's fuel is emptied before hauling, this was not possible in Cochin and the plane was carefully tugged, with ropes sheilded with soft pads, in order to avoid any possible fire. The plane's electrical circuits were also disconnected to ensure safety.

However, five flights which were to land at airport in the early hours of Tuesday were diverted and they include two Ethihad flights and one flight each of Air Arabia, Jet Air and Gulf Air.

Two of them were diverted to Coimbatore, one was diverted to Chennai and the other two to Thiruvananthapuram.

The runway will be ready for the landing of wide-bodies aircraft before 8 am, the airport sources told TOI. "We need a little bit of cleaning up of the runway after the removal of the aircraft," the sources said.

Courtesy : The Times of India

Air Mishaps at Cochin International AIrport

May 30, 2006 - Go Air flight skids off runway. None injured

July 3, 2007 - Air Sahara flight skids off runway. None injured.

July 6, 2007 - Air India Express flight with 61 passengers on board veers off runway after landing in heavy rain. It re-enters runway after travelling 1000 feet on grass.

April 25, 2010 - Emirates flight drops around 200 feet (61 m) during heavy turbulence as aircraft enters a thick cloud. 20 passengers injured. Some internal damage to aircraft.

Courtesy : Deccan Chronincle

CCTV visuals show Gulf Air flight landed outside runway

KOCHI: Flight schedules are returning to full scale mode at the Cochin International Airport on Tuesday morning after the slush-stuck Gulf Air flight GF 270 was removed from the runway on Tuesday morning.

The Gulf Air flight, an airbus 320, skidded off the runway at the Cochin International Airport on 3.55 am on Monday, injuring seven passengers and throwing domestic and international flight schedules from Kerala's busiest airport out of kilter.

Meanwhile, sources told TOI that CCTV visuals showed that the GF270 landed outside the runway and suggested that poor visibility would have played a part in it. The airport authorities have asked the pilot and the crew not to leave the country till the investigations into the mishap are completed.

Courtesy : The Times of India

Safety concerns in the air

A series of mishaps since 2006 has worried the Cochin Airport Ltd (CIAL), the first international airport in India constructed in the public-private partnership (PPP) model, though its authorities maintain that they are continuously improving safety measures.

The latest mishap involving the Gulf Air flight from Bahrain in the wee hours of Monday is the fourth such incident in which planes have veered off the runway while landing.

The first was on May 30, 2006, involving Go Air. Then on July 3, 2007, about 60 passengers and the crew of an Air.

Sahara Delhi-Bangalore-Kochi flight had a miraculous escape after it skidded off the runway.

On July 6, 2007, Air India Express Flt IX-454, a B737-800 (VT-AXC) with 61 passengers on board had an accident while landing in heavy rain. The aircraft at touchdown veered off the runway. However, it re-entered the runway, after travelling 1,000 ft through the grass.

The CIAL authorities, however, say that there is nothing wrong with the runway, which was repaved recently. “This year itself there were 1,000-odd landings on the runway which shows that there is nothing wrong with the runway,” said the CIAL MD, Mr V.J. Kurien.

At 11,000 ft, CIAL has one of the longest runways in the country and is equipped with Category 1 (CAT 1) Instrument landing system. It enables precision instrument approach and landing with a decision height not lower than 200 feet (61 m) above touchdown zone elevation and with either a visibility not less than 800 meters (2,600 ft) or a runway visual range not less than 550 meters (1800 ft).

Mr Kurien said more advanced ILS is not required such as the CAT-1 facility in Delhi. “It is used for safe landing during reduced visibility due to fog or blowing snow,” he said.

“We don’t require the advanced system. The current navigational aids permit all weather landing.” However, most of the mishaps in recent years happened during rain or when the runway was wet, pointing to the need for more advanced landing systems. The pilots, involved in two of the mishaps, had reported “complete blank” while landing.

The airport, boasts rescue and fire fighting safety systems meeting CAT9 standards. But the process of setting up the radar has remained a non-starter for over one year.

“There are no issues with Airport Authority of India over the installation of radar,” said Mr Kurien. “We are taking all steps to operate it in another six months.”

Courtesy : Deccan Chronicle

Mishaps casting a shadow on CIAL

KOCHI: Back to back incidents are casting a shadow on the Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL) at Nedumbassery. Monday’s incident in which a Gulf Air flight skidded off the runway could very well add to the worries of CIAL officials.

The airport witnessed tense moments on Monday morning. In a mad rush, the passengers jumped through the emergency doors which left seven passengers injured. One of the passengers, 47-year-old Sait Mohemmed of Palakkad, was rushed to Little Flower Hospital ,Angamaly. He suffered rib fracture as he jumped out of the aircraft.

“When the aircraft was landing, it suddenly skidded off the runway and nosedived into the muddy area. We thought something was about to happen and we jumped out of the emergency exit. There was a mad rush while passengers were trying to get out of the aircraft,” said one of the passengers.

Immediately after the incident, the runway was closed for a substantially long time. At the airport, it was virtual chaos when news about the incident spread. The relatives who arrived at the airport to receive the passengers rushed to collect details about the passengers. Panic was writ large on their faces.

A number of flights to Kochi, including domestic and international, were either cancelled or diverted to airports in Thiruvananthapuram or Bangalore. With international flights from Kochi delayed for a long time, the passengers crowded in front of the terminal manager’s office demanding an explanation. However, the officials too were helpless.

Back to back incidents are proving costly to the image of the Cochin International Airport. It was on Sunday night that the passengers and the crew of an Air India Express flight (IX 419) to Abu Dhabi with 192 passengers on board had a providential escape when the flight landed back here immediately after take off.

According to sources, the pilot alerted the Air Traffic Control about the technical snag, following which it was held in the air for sometime for fuel jettisoning. Later around 10.30 pm, it landed at the airport.

In yet another incident on Friday, which revealed a major security lapse at CIAL, a 12-year-old boy entered the airport without the knowledge of the security officials. The boy, allegedly reached� the aircraft bay on the air-side. The incident revealed the security lapses through gate no 1 manned by CISF personnel.

Courtesy : ibnline.in.com

Gulf Air Flight Mishap - Bahrain officials in Kochi

A ten-member team of officials from Gulf Air and Bahrain Civil Aviation Affairs left Manama to join the initial investigations, in Kochi, after the Gulf Air plain had a narrow escape on Monday, as it skidded off the runway and came to a halt in a muddy area some 30 meters away damaging its nose wheel.

“Gulf Air is coordinating with relevant authorities in investigating the cause of the incident. At this point, we cannot confirm the extent of the damage to the aircraft. Further investigations are ongoing,” the airline in an official statement said.

Seven of the passengers have sustained injuries, one of them admitted to hospital with fractures, as they jumped to safety out of the plane through the emergency exits of the Airbus 320 aircraft amid confusion. Some of them lost their passports and other documents in the marshy land. The passengers included an infant.

Officials at the Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) said bad weather could be the reason for the mishap. The plane stopped before hitting a wall averting a major tragedy, reports said. Most of the passengers were from Saudi Arabia and the neighboring tiny emirate of Bahrain.

A Saudi Arabian Airline flight (SV 778, bound for Jeddah via Riyadh) and 11 domestic flights were canceled following the accident while several flights were delayed or diverted to nearby airports of Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode in Kerala and Bangalore in nearby Karnataka state.

Kochi has a normal runway with a length of 3,400 meters, which is believed to have helped in averting a tragedy. There was a heavy rush of vacationing workers ahead of the festival season of Eid Al-Fitr and Onam, the southernmost state's harvest festival.

West Asia is home to some two million guest workers from Kerala and they mainly depend on the three intentional airports in the state as well as Mangalore in the neighboring Karnataka state.

Courtesy : arabnews.com

The accident occurred at 3.55 am Indian time and the runway was immediately closed. It became partially operational by the afternoon after a Disabled Aircraft Retrieval Kit arrived from Mumbai. CIAL runs India's first corporate airport funded mainly by its Diaspora.

The Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has ordered an inquiry into the incident. An inquiry team from Chennai has reached the airport and they are looking into it. They will inspect if there's any breach of protocol while landing and if it could have been averted. The airport was immediately closed for traffic.

The CIAL airport authorities were hopeful that the services at the airport would be normalized by midnight. There was no damage to the runway though there was a heavy rain since last night which continued when the plane was landing.