Patel meets PM, owns moral responsibility for crash

NEW DELHI - Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel Saturday met Prime Minister Minister Manmohan Singh and owned up moral responsibility for the Air India Express Boeing 737 crash in Mangalore in which at least 159 people were killed.

“I expressed my anguish. I told him about my personal and moral responsibility as head of the civil aviation family,” Patel told reporters after meeting the prime minister at his 7, Race Course Road residence.

Though he did not give a direct answer to queries about his having made an offer to resign, Patel said he had “a great sense of personal anguish and felt morally responsible that such a tragic incident had taken place”.

Patel, who went to Mangalore Saturday morning to oversee the rescue operations, said the prime minister expressed his shock, pain and anguish at the incident and told him “not to be overcome by the situation but to face it”.

He said the prime minister conveyed that any mistakes should be corrected and that certain things were beyond control.

Manmohan Singh had spoken to Patel, who was in Mumbai, early Saturday morning after which the minister rushed to Mangalore.

“It was my duty to brief the prime minister about the tragic incident,” Patel said.

Patel said the situation of the plane before its landing and that of the Mangalore airport appeared to be normal by all accounts.

“On a normal day, it should have been a normal landing.”

He said the 8,000 feet runway was fully suited for Boeing 737 aircraft. “The runway has an instrument landing system. It has a navigation system. The visibility was approximately six kilometres, winds were calm, there was no rain and the runaway was dry.”

He said in these circumstances there would have been a normal landing but “unfortunately, as it appears, the plane landed beyond the normal threshold and overshot the runway”.

“This was a completely certified runway.”

He said Mangalore has a “table top” runway but the plane did not stop at the 90 metre sandfilled runover area and plunged into the valley.

The pilot had flying experience of about 10,200 hours of which 2,700 hours had been spent as a commander of a Boeing 737 aircraft, Patel informed. He said the co-pilot had done more than 3,500 hours of flying and added that the two pilots had knowledge of the airport and its topography.

“The reason of the crash will be known when the high level inquiry ordered by DGCA (Director General Civil Aviation) is completed,” he said, adding that Air India was also doing its own inquiry and will assist the DGCA in its work. He said the DGCA would take assistance of outside experts if required.

Patel, who spoke to some survivors, said the plane appeared to have caught fire gradually and there was no explosion.

Conveying his sympathies with the bereaved families, he said as per the Montreal Convention the families of those killed will get upto $160,000 in compensation.

Patel said that the black-box of the plane is likely to be found from the wreckage.

Answering queries, he said that steps had been taken to resume flights from Mangalore.

If any steps were needed to improve the airport, those will be taken, he added.