Was Mangalore crash caused by pilot fatigue?

The country's worst air crash in a decade took place when the Air India Express Boeing 737-800 plane flying from Dubai to Mangalore overshot its landing and plunged down an embankment at the end of the runway.

Though it's still not clear what led to the British pilot flying the plane misjudging his landing so badly, a section of senior pilots, including the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (IPCA), are already blaming pilot fatigue for being responsible for the major accident.

“Pilots on duty on short haul international flights like the one from Dubai hardly get proper rest. They have to fly back to India after two to three-hours break, which causes fatigue over a period of time which in turn affects alertness and decision making at crucial times,” said a senior Air India pilot.

Two years ago, an Air India Express flight from Mumbai to Dubai overshot its destination by 350 miles (560km) after its pilots apparently fell asleep due to fatigue.

A senior official of the airline said while long-haul flights get double set of crew, pilots managing the short-haul flights hardly get the required rest in between the duty hours.

“Pilots complain that they are overworked and not given enough time off. But required attention has not been paid to such complaints,” the official said.

Following the Mangalore crash, in a letter to the Prime Minister, the ICPA — an association of Air India pilots — has pointed out that up to 78 percent of crashes were caused by fatigue-related human error.

IPCA said the rules that govern the pilots' work hours, the Flight and Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) which were formulated in 1992 when air operations in India were on a much smaller scale, have no scientific basis.

It said aviation authorities the world over had revised their FDTL on the basis of a study by the Federal Aviation Administration of the USA with the Nasa. It said in India not much study had been conducted on the effect of fatigue on performance.

The association said although the FDTL in India was also changed in 2005, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation later withdrew the revised rules under “pressure from private operators”.

Some experts have pointed put that pilots of the crashed plane might have tried to have a smooth landing instead of landing on a thud and, hence, overflew the touchdown point on the 8,000 feet runway. The touchdown point is an area of about 500 feet on the runway where the aircraft's wheels should touch for landing. This could have been done as the airline has been insisting on avoiding bumpy landings, sources said.

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