Another AI Express plane has close shave

MUMBAI: The Mangalore air crash seems to have opened a Pandora\'s box, with other incidents of air-safety violations coming to light. The latest concerns last Wednesday\'s Air India Express Dubai-Pune flight, which rapidly descended several thousand feet over Muscat air space even as the pilots flouted some basic safety norms.



The Pune-Dubai flight IX-212, with 112 passengers on board, started descending at 2000 feet per minute and -- according to reports -- came down to about 15,000 feet when, according to sources, the commander was not in the cockpit. \"He had gone to the toilet when the auto pilot of the plane got disengaged. The co-pilot could not control the aircraft as it started the descent,\" said the source. It was not clearly known what altitude the flight was at when it started its rapid descent.



The rapidly descending aircraft cut through the flight paths of several other aircraft but miraculously did not come into a collision course with any other aircraft; there was no Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) resolution advisory.



The Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has launched an investigation into the incident. An airline spokesperson confirmed the incident but denied that the aircraft lost 15,000 feet. \"Flight IX-212 lost some height (not 15,000 feet as reported). There are no reports of any injuries to passengers and crew,\" said the spokesperson, adding that the pilots as well as the four cabin crew had been de-rostered to enable them to participate in the inquiry.



What the incident highlights is the absence of standard operating procedures (SOP) in Air India Express, which are followed by several international airlines when it comes to one of the pilots leaving the cockpit.



\"Under the SOP when a pilot leaves the cockpit during flight, a flight attendant is supposed to join the other pilot. This is done so that if the lone pilot in the cockpit gets incapacitated for some reason, the flight attendant will be able to open the locked cockpit door,\" said a senior commander of an international airline. \"The SOP was introduced by several airlines after 9/11 when new norms for securing cockpit doors were adopted by all airlines for security reasons,\" he added.



The Dubai-Pune incident took place just four days after the Mangalore Air India Express aircrash where a flight from Dubai overshot the runway while landing.


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