The air crash at Mangalore has raised questions about the construction of “tabletop” runways in the country such as the one in Mangalore, even as the government maintained that the table-top runway at Mangalore — operational from 2006 — had received all safety clearances and was long enough for a Boeing 737 aircraft to land on it without any problems. The government stated that as many as 32,000 landings of aircraft had taken place at that runway and that there was never a single complaint.
A tabletop airport is constructed by flattening a hill-top and is surrounded by hilly terrain and valleys.
Senior Air India pilot Capt. Kapil Raina, who had piloted an Air India aircraft to Mangalore just on Friday, told this newspaper that pilots have to be extra careful while landing at table-top runways such as Mangalore and Kozhikode.
“When I landed at Mangalore on Friday, the cross wind speed was very high and I exercised utmost caution. This is because the aircraft will hit a valley if it overshoots the runway and runway safety area at the end of it in contrast to normal runways.” Other pilots that this newspaper spoke to said pilots have to take a decision on landing while at the “minimum decision altitude” as they approach the runway and can always resort to a “go-around” if they feel that they may overshoot the touchdown zone.
Pilots say that other airports where some difficulties may be encountered while landing include Mumbai (due to the high glide path), Kozhikode and Srinagar airports. Of these, Kozhikode is also a table-top airport.
Both civil aviation minister Praful Patel and Airports Authority of India chairman V.P. Agarwal said the Mangalore runway was about 8,000-ft-long and also had a runway safety area of another 90 metres beyond the runway. The AAI chairman also said the pilot had not sent any distress signal before landing.
The AAI stated that there was good visibility of 6 km at the time of the accident. It also stated that the wind was “calm” at the time and that there had been no rain at the time of the crash.