Letters: Turbulent skies

If the Mangalore tragedy wasn’t enough, we now have news that another Air India plane, from Dubai to Pune, nearly caused another disaster, one that could have been several times bigger. The pilot put the plane on auto-pilot and went to the bathroom; the auto-pilot got disengaged, but since the co-pilot blacked out, the plane lost several thousand feet of height. Fortunately, there were no other planes below it — a mid-air collision was almost certain had this not been the case.

The DGCA has now put out guidelines on how there has to be two people in the cockpit at all points in time. It has also said that a “correct” landing is more important than a “soft” one — in Mangalore, the pilot is believed to have floated parallel to the ground for a long time to attain a “soft” landing instead of making a hard landing early on the runway which would have given him more space to bring the plane to a halt.

Two such incidents within a short time of each other make you wonder if all is well with the airline. To compound matters, the airline also has a huge union trouble.

Ashutosh Garg, New Delhi