NEW DELHI: A Jet Airways aircraft made a ‘blind’ landing in Kerala last August in an unprecedented seventh attempt after running dangerously low on fuel due to the six previous failed landing attempts. The extremely bad weather pushed the pilot to take this decision. The DGCA had conducted an inquiry into this case of August 17, 2015, and the report has brought out some chilling facts.
The Boeing 737 on its way from Doha to Kochi had six failed landing attempts — a first ever for aviation — and made it only in the seventh try in Thiruvananthapuram when it was just running out of fuel. This, the DGCA report given to the government says, could have had “disastrous consequences”. “Do you know where it (runway) is?” the cockpit voice recorder quotes the first officer as asking the commander, and the reply is: “Just going blindly.”
The pilots had no option but to land as the B-737 had very little fuel, 349 kg to be precise the DGCA has found, as there was no fuel left for another landing attempt. When the aircraft was approaching Kochi for landing in the first time, it had 4,844 kg fuel.
Bureau Report
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