Kozhikode Plane crash: High-level panel to evaluate corrective action based on AAIB report

In a key development, the high-level panel assessing the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board's recommendations in the Kozhikode plane crash report is considering corrective actions that need to be implemented and will submit the report within the stipulated time frame, the sources privy with the details informed news agency PTI. The committee was formed in September after the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) submitted its report to the civil aviation ministry on the deadly Air India Express plane crash that occurred last year at Kozhikode airport in Kerala. The committee is chaired by Civil Aviation Secretary Rajiv Bansal.

The committee has also been requested to investigate the status of the implementation of AAIB's recommendations, which were issued following the probe into the jet crash at Mangalore airport in May 2010, which is said to be similar to the Kozhikode air crash. Two sessions of the panel have taken place, according to Rajiv Bansal, and corrective actions are being explored.

"The committee has been given two months' time and one month is over. We will submit the report within the time frame," he said.

On the occasion of the inauguration of the Kushinagar international airport in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday, Bansal spoke with PTI on the safety of the aeroplanes in India and also shed light on the recommendations being made for the Kozhikode airport.
 

The AAIB report says the events of the plane crash at Kozhikode replicated the Mangalore crash of 2010. It said,"Ten years later, on 7 August 2020, it was once again a similar tabletop aerodrome, the same airline, the same type of aircraft that landed off an 'Un-stabilised Approach' and touched down past half the runway and resulted in another major disaster"

Kozhikode Plane Crash 2020 

21 persons were killed and several more were injured in a disaster involving a Boeing 737-800 plane flying from Dubai to Kozhikode operated by Air India Express. The AAIB made 43 safety recommendations in its Kozhikode plane crash investigation report, which was released on September 11. According to the report, the incident on August 7, 2020, at the Kozhikode airport, was similar to the Mangalore crash that happened on May 22, 2010. The Mangalore incident claimed the lives of 158 persons. 

With PTI Inputs

Image: AP