Aircraft had ample room to land, says union official

Mangalore's tabletop airport still allows plenty of room for aircraft such as the Boeing 737-800 to land, according to the head of the Indian Air Traffic Controller's Guild.

Despite being built on a hilltop, Mangalore's Bajpe International Airport allows plenty of room for aircraft such as the Boeing 737-800 to land, according to the head of the Indian Air Traffic Controllers' Guild. Air India Express Flight 812 landed 610 metres beyond where it should have, but the pilot still should have had enough room to stop, said DS Raghavan, the president of the guild. "You still have 6,000 feet [1,830 metres]. I don't think that should be short for a Boeing 737 to land," Mr Raghavan said from the guild's offices in New Delhi. "We do not know why he landed 2,000 feet [610 metres] beyond." But the airport's position - about 20km north-east of Mangalore on a plateau surrounded by valleys 200 metres beyond the runway - meant a plane was certain of "falling into the ditch" if it went past the 90m "safety area" at the end of the runway, he said. According to reports, the pilot of Flight 812 had 10,000 flying hours, including 19 landings at Bajpe. Environment Support Group, a Bangalore-based non-governmental organisation, yesterday said it and other groups had raised concerns about the layout of the airport and the lack of nearby emergency roads when its expansion was considered in the mid-1990s. The accident came a week after a new terminal building was opened. Officials were hopeful that the airport, which handles mostly domestic flights along with flights to Middle Eastern destinations such as Qatar and the UAE, would earn international status soon, the Times of India reported. One obstacle to that status was the need for a 2,745m runway, said Praful Patel, the minister of state for civil aviation. The airport was opened in 1951 as Bajpe Aerodrome. In 2006, it opened a second runway made of concrete. The first international flight to land there in 2006 was from Dubai. Air India Express, a budget airline and subsidiary of Mumbai-based Air India, operates flights to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Sharjah. Flight 812 operates seven days a week from Dubai to Bajpe at 1.15am. Flight time is about three hours and 45 minutes. Air India Express also runs three other flights from Dubai, and five per week from Abu Dhabi to Mangalore. The airline, established in May 2004, also flies elsewhere in the Middle East, including Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain, as well as destinations in south and South East Asia. The company has 24 B737-800 aircraft configured for single-class economy seating. Their capacity is about 180 passengers. Air India, the parent company of Air India Express, reported a loss of US$875 million (Dh3.2 b) in the financial year that ended in March 2009, Reuters reported. Last month the Indian government approved US$173 (Dh635.43) million to help Air India. [e-mail] * With agencies