Pilot blamed for Mangalore air crash

A report by the officials of Directorate General of Civil Aviation has revealed that the Air India Express crash in Mangalore occurred due to pilot error.

DGCA on Wednesday submitted the report to a Court of Inquiry (CoI), probing the Air India Express mishap, which occurred on May 22, 2010 outside Mangalore airport in Karnataka.

This was India’s worst air tragedy, which killed158 people.

The data retrieved from the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of the ill-fated aircraft has shown that the captain was on the wrong flight path and had also delayed in taking corrective measures despite being requested by his co-pilot for "a go-around".
 
The 2.05 minutes of CVR recording has indicated that despite being warned by the aircraft computers to "pull up, the captain had not paid heed to it. He also ignored the co-pilot telling him to go-around.

 The last few seconds of the recording clearly says "we don't have runway left" after which the CVR has recorded the loud crashing sound.

While deposing before the Court of Inquiry, Boeing officials said that the pilot was not on the right glide path while approaching the Mangalore airport.

He had approached for landing at an angle more than three degrees which is the standard procedure, the officials submitted.

They also found some anomalies in the captain's way of taking the corrective measures which could have averted the accident.