With the visibility dropping to near zero in Friday evening’s heavy downpour, the pilot of the Air India Express flight had made an unsuccessful first attempt to land at the Calicut International Airport from the standard East to West direction. This was aborted at the last moment before the second attempt was made.
Airport sources told DH that the second landing attempt was made from the reverse West to East direction (10 landing). But due to the poor visibility, the Boeing 737 aircraft touched down only towards the half-way mark of the 9,000ft runway.
Survivors have recalled that the flight had landed at a very high speed. The Air Traffic Control (ATC) sources confirmed this and said the aircraft crossed even the 240m runway safety area before falling 30-35 m into the valley down. Although the aircraft split into two on impact, it did not catch fire. The toll could have been much higher otherwise, the sources said.
The airport runway is equipped only with a Category II Instrument Landing System (ILS), affecting visibility. The heavy rainfall in the area only made it worse. Airport sources said the ILS lighting and antenna were all damaged in the landing. Six of the 12 antennas were hit by the speeding aircraft.
Upgraded to an international airport in February 2006, the table-top runway was initially only 6,000ft long. Currently, the airport, located in Karipur in Malappuram district of Kerala, is the country’s 12th busiest in terms of passenger traffic.
Before Friday’s incident, the airport had recorded four accidents. On August 4, 2017, a SpiceJet flight had skidded on landing and damaged the ILS beacons. The same year on April 25, an Air India flight suffered an engine failure during takeoff leading to a left tyre burst.
On July 9, 2012, an Air India Express skidded on landing, again during heavy rain. However, there were no casualties. Another Air India flight from Jeddah had scraped its right wingtip on the runway landing on November 7, 2008.