Experts suspect pilot error in mishap

KOCHI: A pilot error caused the accident at the Cochin International Airport in the wee hours of Monday, experts said.Although, three possibilities are being considered - failure of the instrumental landing system(ILS), pilot error and a sudden blow of crosswind; the primary assessment puts the pilot in the dock.Kochi-based aviation expert Jacob Philip sees a 70 percent chance that it was an error on the part of the pilot. “It is learnt that the flight did not land along the centre of the runway, as is the  usual practice. However, pilots often land even when there is a slight variation from the centre and make up in running after touch down. In today’s incident, the pilot might have attempted a landing away from the centre hoping to change  direction later. The change in direction coupled with speed might have caused the aircraft to lose control and skid off the runway,” Philip said.Supporting this reasoning, Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) director A C K Nair said that there was no problem with the ILS. “A few minutes before the accident, the flights of Qatar Airways and Emirates had landed without any difficulty,” Nair said.  However, Philip does not count out the effect of crosswind. “Another major possibility is a sudden crosswind which could have blown after the aircraft descended to a lower altitude,” he said.Meanwhile, an Indian Airlines pilot refuted the statement of CIAL managing director V J Kurian that a pilot has no option but to land after descending to a height of 350 feet. “The CIAL MD’s statement is wrong. What wonders me is why the pilot did not opt for a go around instead of making a risky landing in rain as he claimed. Go around is possible even after descending to a height of 50 feet,” said the pilot who is serving as a commander. He added that rain which is moderate at a higher altitude may become intense at a lower altitude.“Therefore, the statement of the pilot that there was blindness owing to rain may be true,” he said.   A crosswind is the component of wind blowing across the runway making landings and take-offs more difficult than if the wind were blowing straight down the runway. An attempt to land in crosswind could cause structural damage to the aircraft’s undercarriage. Captain Ranganathan, a retired Air India pilot and an aviation expert, observed that rain could be the reason for the accident. “It may be noted that there were four runway-skidding incidents in Cochin International Airport during the past four years. All the incidents were during monsoon and in all incidents the aircraft skidded to the right side of runway. It’s high time that airport authorities looked into the matter as to why accidents happen during monsoon only,” he said.