CRASHED SECONDS AFTER LANDING! - The Tragedy of Air India Express 1344

this Air India Express plane is approaching Runway 10 at coric COD International Airport in it are people returning to India after being stuck in Dubai due to the covid lockdowns but this isn't going to be a happy ending because in 5 minutes this plane is going to crash at the end of the runway is a 110 ft Cliff the plane is going to touch down on the the runway the pilot will apply the brakes but he won't be able to stop the plane it'll overrun the runway fall down the cliff and break into three sections this crash needn't have happened many unfortunate events mostly man-made combined to cause this tragedy so the question now is what just happened let's find out this is the story of Air India Express [Music] 1344 many people across the globe were stuck in other countries unable to return home due to the sudden covid lockdowns and for people people of the Southern Indian state of Kerala where coric Cod is situated the Middle East is a popular tourist and expat destination so to bring Indian citizens stranded outside the country back home the Indian government organized repatriation flights and one such flight was Air India Express 1344 the aircraft used for this flight was a 14-year-old Boeing 737800 which first flew for Air India Express in 20 06 other than requiring minor maintenance work over the years the plane was in a good condition with no major issues recorded it's the morning of August 7th at coric COD an empty flight with just the crew takes off at 449 UTC headed for Dubai the flight was flown by a 59-year-old captain and a 32-year-old first officer after a short flight it lands uneven at Dubai International Airport at 811 UTC the return flight was scheduled to depart 1 and a half hours later at around 9:30 UTC due to co protocols the boarding was slower than expected this made the captain concerned and he was visibly anxious the captain is going to play a major role in this incident so let's talk about him he was an ex Indian military pilot and he had been working working for Air India and then Air India Express from around the year 2000 he had around 11,000 hours of Total flying experience of which 4,500 hours were on the type he had a medical history of diabetes for which he was prescribed company approved allopathic medications but unknown to anyone at that time he was also taking ayurvedic medications for his diabetes the combination of the two could lead to spikes in sugar levels and decreased situational awareness the captain's training records had some Curious remarks in them between the years 2009 and 2014 there were at least nine comments by trainers and supervisors that said unsatisfactory loses concentration when under stress and tends to float during Landings the captain's home base was Mumbai and he was repositioned to Cory code on the sixth he was scheduled to fly flight 1344 to Dubai on the 7th to be on standby Duty on the 8th and then had another Dubai flight on the 9th before returning to Mumbai player number two in this incident is the airline Air India Express the way Air India Express bases its Pilots is that the first officers are posted based on where they are required but the captains can choose their home base as per their preference this meant that at Cory Cod there were 26 first officers but only one Captain stationed due to the sudden increase in the number of repatriation flights there weren't enough captains in goic COD and hence the captain of this flight was repositioned from Mumbai the crew were undertaking their pre-flight checks when the captain got an update from Air India Express the company had added an additional flight to the schedule and hence had to change the captain's roster he was originally supposed to be on standby Duty the next day but as for the new schedule he was now asked to fly a flight to Doha at 8:30 in the morning company policy required a minimum rest period of 12 hours between flights and after adding on additional time for prep and for travel the minimum Gap required between the captain's two flights was 15 hours since his Dubai flight today was scheduled to return at 7:00 p.m. ist the Doha flight the next day was rescheduled from 8:30 in the morning to 10: in the morning to get a 15-hour gap but what this meant was that any delay to The Landing time of this flight at coric code would delay the departure of his flight to Doha the next day this last minute assignment put additional pressure on the captain to land back at Cory code on time this was a reason for the captain's anxiety when when the boarding of passengers in Dubai was delayed now back to Dubai 184 passengers and 10 infants boarded the flight and were eager to return to India after having spent an uncertain 6 months in Dubai the pilots pushed back as soon as the doors closed and they departed Dubai at 1000 [Music] UTC destination Cor coric Cod is situated in the Indian Peninsula it experiences significant amount of rainfall due to its proximity to the Western guts to the East and to the Arabian Sea to its West it's one of the wetest cities in India and August is peak season for the Southwest Monsoon which brings the city most of its rainfall and on the day of the incident the city was being battered by rain rain the potential alternate airports for kic COD were trali katur and Ki they chose Kochi as the alternate since both cities are on the same side of the western GS the weather in koochi was very similar to that of coric cod it was raining and had a visibility of 2500 m 3 and 1 half hours after leaving Dubai and whiles 52 nautical miles from coric Cod airport the pilots got in touch with at C who relayed that the visibility at Cory Cod was 1500 M with a moderate thunderstorm surface winds at 270° at 14 knots corico airport is also going to play a crucial role in the story this airport has what's called a tabletop Runway it was constructed by shaving off the top of a hill to create a flat tabletop these runways have steep drops at both ends and on the sides at the end of Runway 10 the ground drops 110 ft here's a video of an air bus landing on the runway and you can clearly see how steep the edges are on this Runway cicode airport is non-standard in many ways every Runway has a Runway end safety area a racer the racer is designed using special material to prevent airplanes from overshooting the runway Racers are supposed to be 90 M by 90 m but due to the unavailability of land the width of the racer here varied between 71 M and 85 M the airport also has a non-standard Runway width due to land availability restrictions the airport was approved to have a Runway width of 75 M the standard minimum width for a Runway is 140 M the runway lighting at the airport was also non-standard again due to the unavailable ability of land the approach Lights of the runway which the pilots used to see and locate the runway was permitted to be 150 M standard length of approach lights is 900 M due to how non-standard this Runway is corod airport is classified as a critical airport which means that only the captain is allowed to operate the flight from this airport the co-pilot can only be pilot monitoring cicor airport was under two concurrent Aerodrome warnings one for the rain and two because the wind was exceeding 17 knots the conditions were so dangerous that the airport had proactively stationed airport fire engines at predetermined points along the runway during the approach the plane was flying in light rain and moderate turbulence conditions now we already know that the plane failed to stop on the runway once it landed at coric cot to understand the reasons better you need to understand the various mechanisms available to a pilot to stop a plane here's a quick guide the first are the speed brakes remember when as a kid you used to put your hand out of the window of the car and you'd feel the force of the wind on your hand and there's resistance that is exactly what a speed break is if your hands were large enough that wind resistance could have stopped the car and we can use that same principle to stop a plane once the airplane touches down the computer senses an increase in the force of the wheels and immediately pops up huge panels above the wing which increases the drag and decreases the speed the second are the reversal during normal flight the engines create thrust in this direction which causes the plane to move in the opposite direction but when the reversers are enabled there's a panel in the engine that opens up up and directs the engine output in the opposite direction this will cause the plane to want to go in reverse thus slowing the plane down the reverses are not automatically deployed and will need to be manually enabled by the pilot flying the third is manual braking this is similar to how you stop your car the pilot can step on the brake pedals to invoke manual braking and bring the plane to a stop and the last is Auto braking due to the heavy workload that the pilots have during Landing the airplanes are designed to break itself for this the Pilates need to set the auto functionality to one of four values these four values Define how quickly the plane will come to a stop when Max is selected the plane will stop at the shortest distance possible and when one is selected the plane will come to a more gradual stop but when the pilot manually breaks the Auto Brak is automatically disabled and the computer gives full control of braking to the pilots now in order to know what flap settings and auto Brak values to use the pilots are required to calculate a landing distance required value at every approach briefing this needs to be done every time because no two approaches are ever the same there could be differences in weather aircraft weight and flying style to account for but these pilots on this approach didn't calculate it the captain had operated 36 flights in and out of corico airport in the past 1 year and he chose the auto Brak and flap settings from memory the plane was cleared for ILS approach for Runway 28 at 1344 UTC the approach for Runway 28 required the plane to fly to the VR overfly F the runway and then fly outward for a specific distance do a U-turn and then attempt the approach on Runway 28 the ATC informed the crew that the runway visibility was 2,000 M and it was decreasing to 1500 M the wind was blowing from 280° there was light rain and the runway surface was wet the captain was concerned about visibility and instructed the first officer to ensure that the windshield wipers were working you just see that this works remember put it to high and a minute later he said the first officer turned the wipers on both the captain and the co-pilot saw the runway leading lights and at exactly the same time that they saw the lights the captain's windshield wiper stopped working Viper is gone what a day for the wiper to go due to the sudden decrease in visibility because of the wiper stopping the captain could no longer sight the Runway and hence he decided to go around they pressed the toga switch and applied max power and executed the go on procedure the aircraft was then cleared by ATC to climb to 10,000 ft now there was an opportunity here for the accident to be averted but it was not taken Air India expresses operating procedures requires that if the windshield wipers are not functioning during rain then the plane has to diver to an airport where it isn't raining remember coric Cod is a critical airport and hence the pilot monitoring wasn't allowed to land the plane even if he had a perfectly functioning wiper Ki their chosen alternate was also in rainy conditions the nearest airport that had clear weather was katur they had sufficient fuel to diver to their alternates fuel was not an issue but at no no point did the captain nor the first officer discuss the possibility of a diversion at the same time that all of this was happening an Air India Airbus A320 with call sign Air India 425 is preparing to take off from Cory code headed for Delhi the current active Runway is Runway 28 but the pilot of Air India 425 request the ATC for permission to take off from Runway 10 instead this is because there are active rain clouds over the direction of Runway 28 and the Air India plane wanted to avoid it the ATC accepted this request and immediately switched the active Runway from Runway 28 to 10 and gave Air India 425 taxi clearance to the runway the ATC then asked the crew of Air India Express 1344 whether they would like to use Runway 10 as well and reported that the current wind was at 270° and at 8 knots so I've been mentioning the wind speed and wind direction quite a few times in this video why is the wind speed and wind direction important let's take a look airplanes usually land and take off Against the Wind this is also called headwind this is because the aircraft's wings relies on the speed of the air moving over it to lift it off the ground here's an example this is a small cesna 172 the takeoff speed is approximately 55 to 60 knots keep an eye on the wind sock at the back it'll show you how fast the wind is blowing I'm going to park the plane and then increase the wind speed to 55 knots and as I keep increasing the wind at one point the plane just starts to fly I admited it's not stable because I'm not controlling it but this is a good illustration to show that it's not the ground speed of the plane on the runway but rather the speed of the wind over the wings that matters the higher the wind speed over the plane the shorter the takeoff or Landing distance for example here the takeoff distance was 0 m now let's flip the wind direction the little plane now has a Tailwind the wind is blowing from the right to the left and as you can see as I start increasing the wind speed the wind is pushing the plane forward it doesn't fly so to stop this plane I need to press the brakes harder to counteract the wind which means if I land with a Tailwind I'm going to need a much longer Landing distance to bring the plane to a stop so at this point the ATC has asked the pilots whether they'd like to land on Runway 10 instead of Runway 28 Runway way 10 was the inferior of the two runways it doesn't have leaden lights and they would also be flying with a Tailwind which would increase a landing distance but on the other hand remember the captain is under pressure to make sure his flight the next day isn't delayed he needs to land this plane on time he was already half an hour late when he took off from Dubai and he's now had to spend additional time due to the go around if he were to land on Runway 20 eight he'd have to once again intercept the V fly back over the runway make a U turn and then attempt The Landing at Runway 28 there's also this concern that the weather system that they are in right now would move over the runway whilst they are setting themselves up for Runway 28 visibility is 2,000 M wind is at 260° at 5 knots considering all this they decide to land on Runway 10 and for the second time today no calculation of the landing distance was done the pilots didn't brief each other either the flaps and auto Brak settings were set from memory the crew chose flaps 30 the correct setting for this approach was 40 the crew chose Auto break 3 the recommended value was Max at 1400 UTC Air India Express 1344 was then cleared to approach Runway 10 1 minute later the Air India flight to Delhi departed from Runway 10 and by this time the wind speed had doubled to 10 knots and was gusting from 270° at 1406 the aircraft was established on the localizer the captain then instructed the first officer I'll tell you when to put it on I hope it works he was referring to the windshield wiper a minute later the wiper was turned on but it was working at a much slower speed ATC cleared them to land on Runway 10 with a visibility of 2,000 M and a wet Runway surface during Landing the plane needs to follow the Glide slope the Glide slope is an imaginary 3° line from the end of the runway that planes follow for a normal Landing when the plane is on the Glide slope the pink diamond will be centered the first F the diamond is off center the further away from the Glide slope they are things are going to start happening very fast now the already heavy workload on the crew is increasing significantly the first officer disengaged the autopilot at 500 ft above the ground the pitch of the plane reduced and The Descent rate started to increase touching 1500 ft a minute the ideal descent rate is 750 ft per minute the first officer cautioned the pilot about the high rate of descent rate of descent check they were now5 nautical miles from the runway the airplane was well below the Glide slope and was too close to the ground the ground proximity warning system warned them with a Glide slope Glide slope warning the plane was around two dots away from the Glide slope this has now become a very unstabilized approach noticing that the captain hadn't reduced the rate of descent sufficiently the first officer cautioned him again rate of descent Captain yeah yeah correcting correcting correcting it's time we talked about the final player in this incident the first officer the first officer was a 32-year-old male he had a total flying experience of around 2,000 hours having joined Air India Express just 2 years prior to the incident the first officer was flying with a captain whom he had never flown with before before with a captain who was almost twice age who was ex Indian military and was also a training Captain within the company whereas the co-pilot himself had just 2 years of experience in the cockpit the power gradient here was significant rate of descent Captain yeah yeah correcting correcting correcting the captain corrected The Descent and the plane momentarily went slightly above the Glide slope the plane crossed the threshold of Runway 10 at a height of 92 ft the engine thrust was at 61% the auto throttle was commanding to reduce thrust to land the plane but the captain increased the engine thrust to 83% this caused the plane to not touch down and instead it just floated above the runway for the next 5 Seconds the first officer tried to get the captain's attention by saying just check it at this point the aircraft was 2,500 ft from the start of the runway and the touchdown Zone would end in 500 ft the touchdown zone is a marked area on the runway where the plane needs to land inside off in order to provide the pilots with sufficient distance to come to a stop by not touching down in time the plane was eating into valuable stopping distance remember this plane is landing on a wet Runway and with a Tailwind both of which would increase your Landing distance so it's important that they got this right also remember these pil hadn't calculated their actual Landing distance during the approach so they're basically just winging It 2 seconds later the captain reduced the thrust to try to get the wheels to touch the ground but the plane had already crossed the end of the touchdown Zone the first officer said a feeble Captain go around when a go around call is given by either pilot a go around has to be carried out also after two go rounds the pilots have to divert to an alternate airport and cannot attempt a third Landing but the captain here is under pressure to not delay The Landing so that his flight the next day can take off on time if he goes around now he'll have to divert to katur so he ignores the Goon call due to the Steep power gradient in the cockpit the co-pilot doesn't override the captain and conduct the go around himself the plane touched down on the runway one second after the Goon call was made at 1410 UTC the plane was traveling at around 165 knots at this point and it had already consumed 4438 ft of the available 8858 ft the captain then applied Max manual braking the speed brakes were automatically deployed the first officer made mandatory call outs speed brake up Auto break disarm but the captain didn't respond to these call outs after 3 seconds the captain deployed the thrust reverses but then shut it off within 2 seconds before it had any impact and at the same time that he shut off the reverses he lifted his legs from the brake pedal which reduced the braking effect it is likely that he was in two minds about going around but it was too late to spool the engines back up but also the plane wasn't stopping in time he then applied the thrust reverses again when the reverses maximum the plane was already beyond the end of the runway and in the racer both Pilots said it exited the runway at a speed of 85 knots way higher than what the racer was designed for it broke the ILS antennas and a fence before plummeting down the cliff of the tabletop Runway the plane fell 110 ft down the cliff unfortunately this impact resulted in the death of 21 people including the two pilots the primary cause of the accident was attributed to the pilot flying not following established procedures and not going around when the approach was unstabilized the investigation team also found systemic failures within the airlines training and rostering procedures and the airport's design and certification as contributing factors to the incident the investigators found that Air India Express didn't have its own simulators and was instead using those of Air India and those simulators were in properly maintained and had multiple flaws in how it performed due to this the pilots were learning incorrect techniques in the simulator what the industry refers to as negative training recommendations were also made to improve the runway lighting at kico airport and to also increase eraser at both ends of the runway the runway lighting was upgraded in October 2023 3 years after the incident there were 37 other recommendations that were made which are all available in the final report that I've Linked In the video description if you like this video here's another story of an Air India Boeing 7 that lost all navigation instruments and was stuck in the clouds unable to land in New York City I'll see you there

Channel: Wyngx

Views: 911,636

Keywords: Air India Express 1344, Calicut Crash, Kozhikode crash, Wyngx, Mentour Pilot, Green Dot Aviation, Vande Bharat Crash, Air India Crash, Air Accident Investigation, India crash, Boeing 737, Table top runway, tail wind, head wind, AIX1344, AIC1344, Kerala Crash, Pilot Error, Dubai to Kozhikode, India Air Accidents, RESA, Animations, air india express crash, Mangalore crash, air india crash animation, flight 1344, air india flight 1344, india plane crash

Id: m_LAiLPN-EE

Length: 27min 25sec (1645 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 15 2023