Mangaluru marks 16th anniversary of air crash by paying tribute to victims

The Dakshina Kannada district administration paid tribute to the 158 persons who died in an air crash at Mangaluru International Airport on the 16th anniversary of the crash here on Friday.

An Air India Express flight with 166 people on board crashed at the airport while landing on May 22, 2010. Of the 166, eight had survived the crash. The family members and the authorities could not identify 12 bodies that were cremated later on the banks of the Phalguni at Panambur on Tannirbavi Road. A memorial for all the victims was later built there by the government.

K.V. Darshan, Deputy Commissioner of Dakshina Kannada and Sudheer Kumar Reddy, Police Commissioner, laid wreaths at the memorial as a mark of respect to those who had died in the crash. Ravichandra Naik, Commissioner, Mangaluru City Corporation, was also present.

The Court of Inquiry (CoI) into the crash in its report said that the Boeing 737 crash was caused by the failure of the pilot to discontinue an “un-stabilised approach” and persist with the landing. The CoI, headed by the former Vice-Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Bhushan Nilkanth Gokhale, found that the direct cause of the accident was the Captain’s “failure to discontinue the un-stabilised approach and his persistence in continuing with the landing, despite three calls from the First Officer to go around and a number of warnings from EGPWS (enhanced ground proximity warning systems).”