Nepal Crash Puts Spotlight On Table-Top Runways Risk, India Has 5 Of Them

The plane crash in Nepal that left 18 people dead has yet again put the spotlight on table-top runways that have been the site of major plane accidents across the world.

Table-top runways are located on an elevated level than the surrounding terrain. This means there is a steep drop on one or more sides of the runway and this leaves a very slim margin of error for the pilot because if the plane overshoots the runway, it will crash down.

Five airports in India have table-top runways -- Shimla, Calicut, Mangalore, Lengpui (Mizoram) and Pakyong (Sikkim). Of these, the airports in Kerala and Mangalore have seen big crashes in the past. On May 22, 2010, Air India Express Flight 812 from Dubai to Mangaluru crashed on landing at and 158 passengers, including six crew members, were killed.

Ten years later, on August 7, 2020, another table-top runway became the site of a tragedy. The Air India Express flight from Dubai to Kozhikode was part of the Vande Bharat mission to bring back Indian nationals stranded due to Covid pandemic. The plane skidded off the table-top runway and crashed below. Nineteen passengers and both pilots died, but 169 others survived.

Civil Aviation regulator, Directorate General of Civil Aviation, holds periodical reviews of table-top airports to ensure passenger safety. Back in 2022, an official of the DGCA had told the media that the objective behind the review was to prevent any unforeseen incidents and look for ways to make landings in these airports less challenging.

Portugal's Madeira airport, which has a table-top runway, reported a crash back in 1977 when an Air Portugal Flight 425 overshot and crashed onto a beach, killing 131 people.

Even Nepal, which has a poor air travel safety record, has reported crashes involving table-top runways in the past. On May 27, 2017, a cargo plane at crashed at the Tenzing-Hillary airport in Solukhumbu, which has such a runway.

In the crash that took place this morning, the Bombardier CRJ 200 flight skidded off the runway and burst into flames, a spokesperson of the airport has told NDTV. Tribhuvan airport in Kathmandu, where the crash took place, is on the top of a plateau and is surrounded by deep gorges and valleys on all sides. Kathmandu airport is among the most risky airports to land and was the site of a huge crash back in 1992, when 167 passengers of a Pakistan International Airlines plane had died. The Saurya Airlines flight that crashed today had crew and technical staff on board and was on its way to Pokhara.