Investigators may spend as long as two weeks analyzing data before they can say what caused India’s deadliest air disaster in 14 years.
The fire-damaged cockpit voice recorder recovered from the hillside crash site yesterday should yield the necessary clues, the government said in a statement. The aviation regulator will seek to determine how a 2-1/2 year old Air India Express Boeing Co. 737-800 flown by experienced pilots overshot the runway and burst into flames, killing 158 passengers and crew.
Air travel has doubled in the past six years as rising disposable incomes in the world’s second-fastest growing major economy encourage people to shun trains and take a plane for long-distance journeys. The government plans to spend as much as $2.6 billion on modernizing the nation’s airports and aviation infrastructure, including 35 facilities in smaller cities.
“Before clearing aircraft orders, we need to think whether we have the infrastructure,” said A. Ranganathan, a Chennai, south India-based aviation consultant and a former commercial pilot. “Proper planning is required for infrastructure development.”
India needs 1,030 aircraft worth $138 billion over the next 20 years, and will be the fastest-growing air travel market for the next decade, Airbus SAS, the world’s largest planemaker, said in March. Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said the same month that India needs to more than quadruple the number of airports from the current 90 to meet the increased traffic.
Traffic Jumps
Domestic air traffic in India jumped to more than 35 million passengers in the year ended in March 2009 from less than 15 million six years ago, according to the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation. Seven carriers operate 11 different brands in India, compared with four airlines in 2003, it said.
“When you have such high levels of growth, it creates enormous stress on the system,” said Peter Harbison, chairman of the industry consultancy. “It is going to be a big issue for India because the traffic potential is so vast.”
India’s airports reported as many as 70 “near misses” in the last three years, according to minister Patel. The reasons include “co-ordination failures” and stress and fatigue due to heavy traffic, he told Parliament in March.
Flight IX-812 from Dubai to Mangalore crashed at about 6:05 a.m. on May 22. All the bodies of the dead have been removed from the wreckage of the Boeing 737-800, Harpreet Singh, Air India’s emergency response coordinator, said yesterday in Mumbai. Of those, 87 have been identified. There were eight survivors.
Investigators from India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation are leading the probe into the crash.
Refinance Loans
National Aviation Co. of India Ltd., Air India’s owner, is seeking to raise as much as $1.15 billion to refinance loans that funded the purchase of 21 Airbus SAS planes.
The accident was the worst in India in 14 years, according to the Aviation Safety Network website. Houston, Texas-based disaster management company Kenyon International Emergency Services has been asked to assist in the rescue operation, Air India’s Singh said. The airline will also conduct an internal inquiry. The airline and India’s aviation regulator have declined to comment on what may have caused the accident.
Since India’s last major air disaster in 2000, Kingfisher Airlines Ltd., SpiceJet Ltd., IndiGo, GoAirlines (India) Pvt. and Paramount Airways Ltd. have started services, as the world’s fastest expanding major economy after China saw demand surge.
Technical Assistance
Boeing is sending a team to provide technical assistance to the investigation at the invitation of Indian authorities, the Chicago-based manufacturer said in a statement. Air India said the crashed 737 was about 2 1/2 years old.
Both pilots were experienced and had flown into Mangalore together on May 17, Air India’s director for personnel, Anup Srivastava, told reporters in Mumbai May 22. The civil aviation ministry said in a statement the plane had landed “slightly beyond” the runway’s “touchdown” zone at a time when visibility was about six kilometers (four miles).
Both the pilots were “well rested” before the flight, Air India Chairman and Managing Director Arvind Jadhav said yesterday in Mangalore.
The crash on May 22 was the worst in India since a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight collided with a Kazakhstan Airlines jet in November, 1996, killing all 349 on board.
In the South Asian country’s last major air disaster, a Boeing 737-200 crashed into a residential area while approaching Patna airport in the eastern Bihar in July 2000.
International air travel has rebounded from last year’s slump as the global economy expanded. Indian airlines carried 16.82 million passengers between January and April this year, 22 percent more than a year earlier, according to the Civil Aviation Ministry.
Source: Business Week
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