An inquiry by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation has been ordered into the Mangalore air crash and an Air India team will assist it in the probe, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said today.
He told reporters that preliminary observation showed that there was no problem with the four-year-old runway or the aircraft but the plane had overshot by about 2000 feet, leading to the mishap.
Patel said the pilot Z Glusica, British national of Serbian origin, and co-pilot H S Ahluwalia were not new to the terrain, as they had undertaken several landings at the same airport.
He said a detailed inquiry would be conducted by the DGCA to ascertain what actually happened at the airport.
"The DGCA has ordered an inquiry. Air India has constituted a team, headed by Executive Director (Operations) to establish the circumstances, collect data and assist the DGCA inquiry," the minister said.
The black box, an instrument which records all conversations between the pilots and ATCs, has not been recovered as yet, he said.
Citing initial details available, he said the "friction quotient" at the runway, which has been operational since 2006, was in order and had been certified by the DGCA. To a question, Patel said the runway, on which the ill-fated plane landed, was bigger than the other one at the airport.
This runway is 8,000 feet long as compared to the other one, which is 6,000 feet long. He said 158 people were killed in the crash but eight survived.
Four of the survivors had minor injuries, three had major injuries and one escaped unhurt.
Vicky Nanjappa reports:
The probe would get a direction once the black box is retrieved. However, that would take time since rescue operations are still on. Teams of the DGCA from Bangalore and New Delhi will be assisted by a team from Boeing in conducting the probe.
Meanwhile, Kerala government has announced two days mourning in the state as majority of the passengers who lost their lives in the crash were from the state. Karnataka is yet to make any such announcement.
On the other side, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa had an adventurous journey and somehow managed to reach Mangalore along with home minister and the state police chief. Yeddyurappa's chopper was forced to land in Hassan due to bad weather, and he had to take the road route to reach Mangalore.
With inputs from PTI