Mumbai:
Four months after the Mangalore crash, it has now been established that 158 lives were lost due to pilot error. An analysis of audio on the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) shows that the Air India Express Boeing 737 was incorrectly aligned to the runway while attempting to land.
The plane, the audio recording establishes, was too high to make a safe landing and the Ground Proximity Warning System sounded several times.
The co-pilot is heard on the audio asking the captain, a pilot of Serbian origin, to abort landing. "We don't have enough runway left," the co-pilot told the captain, as heard on the audio.
(Watch: Rethink on pilots' schedules to avoid crashes, says head of the inquiry committee)
Thrust reversers, critical braking systems on jetliners, were applied late, only after the Boeing 737-800 jet was 6000 feet down the length of 8038 foot runway, it has been found.
The Bajpe airport in Mangalore has a table top runway with steep cliffs on all sides. On Saturday, May 22, the Air India Express Boeing overshot the runway and plunged down a ravine bursting into flames. It was 6:05 am. The only survivors from among the 160 passengers and six crew members on board were those who were thrown off the plane.
(In Pics: How it happened)The Boeing 737-800, which was inducted on January 15, 2008, was being piloted by a British national of Serbian origin, Captain Zlatko Glusica, who, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel later said had 7,000 hours as a pilot in command, with over 2000 of those on a Boeing. He was familiar with the Mangalore airport and had landed there 19 times.
The Indian co-pilot, HS Ahluwalia, had landed at Mangalore airport 66 times.