Air Crash Investigation : Air India Express 1344

Air India Express was operating its air india vande bharat mission flight to Calicut International Airport, Kerala, India.

Onboard the flight was 184 passengers and 6 crew members.

The aircraft was specially designed for a short-field performance package that allows operators to fly increased payload in and out of airports with runways less than 5,000 feet long. It first flew on 15 November 2006 and was operated by Air India Express since then.

The copilot was the pilot monitoring. He obtained the weather of Calicut and alternate airfields. The departure fuel from Dubai was uplifted for Tiruchirappalli, which was the farthest alternate airfield. However, the latest weather update showed that even the closer airfields to Calicut like Cochin and Coimbatore had suitable weather.

Calicut airfield was under two concurrent ‘Aerodrome Warnings’ at this time. The first warning was for TSRA and the second warning was for wind speed exceeding 17 kt. Due to these two warnings, a ‘Weather Standby’ was declared by DATCO and the Crash Fire Tenders were specially positioned at ‘Pre-Determined Points’ along the runway.

13:41 UTC
The air india flight was cleared for descending to 3600 ft. Then it was cleared for ILS approach to runway 28.

The flight was established on the localizer for runway 28. ATC cleared the aircraft to land with reported visibility of 2000m and a trend decreasing to 1500m, winds 280/05 kt in light rain and runway surface wet.

Visual contact with the lead-in, lights were confirmed by both the pilots. The wiper on the Captain's side stopped working.

The air india express 1344 continued on ILS approach for runway 28 to the prescribed Decision Altitude and then carried out a missed approach as per company SOP on not being able to sight the runway at minimums.

The PM completed the After Take-off Checklist while climbing through 3800 ft. Thereafter he sought clearance from Captain to again set up the FMC for ILS approach runway 28. The captain agreed after a slight hesitation.

Around the same time, a departing aircraft of Air India requested ATC for permission to depart from Runway 10 although the runway in use was runway 28 owing to the prevailing winds. ATC accepted the request and immediately changed the active runway from runway 28 to runway 10.

The DATCO then inquired from Flight 1344 whether they too would like to use runway 10 for arrival, which the captain accepted.

The aircraft stopped climb and leveled out at 7000 ft. Then windshield wiper was switched on but the speed of the wiper on the captain's side was slower than the selected speed.

At 500 ft AGL the AP was disengaged while the AT remained engaged. The approach soon became unstabilized.

The air india 1344 crossed the runway threshold at RA of 92 ft and continued to float above the runway.
The plane touched down at 4438 ft on the 8858 ft long runway.

AXB 1344 exited the end of the runway at a ground speed of 84.5 Kt and then overshot the RESA, broke the ILS antennae and the fence before plummeting down the tabletop runway. There was no post-accident fire. The impact caused the aircraft to separate into three sections and resulted in 21 fatalities including both pilots.

The air india express crash investigation was done by AAIB India. Air Crash Investigation team found the probable cause was the captain, who was a pilot flying, failed to follow standard operating procedures. The captain continued an unstabilized approach and landed halfway down the runway. Even the first officer called for a go-around, the captain did not listen to him. They added that the FO was failed to take over the controls and execute a go-around himself.