Did you at all consider that these overruns had nothing to do with the airplane type. Research all of them and post again if pilot error was a factor. The recent PIA A320 accident. Why wasn't that caused by the aircraft vs pilots? That's your theory right? Aircraft type causes accidents...

So far the aircraft (737-800) and pilots/training (of Spice Jet and AI Express) has been mentioned.

What about the condition of INDIAN RUNWAYS!!

Post Covid Era Flying
 

The pilots would have been flying on the limits of their FDTL, due to the current restrictions there are no layovers internationally, the flight time from DXB to CCJ is 4 hours as per FR24, they would've departed an airport in India 3-4 hours away from DXB, that morning.
Add to this the lack of job security, the drastic pay cuts, the monsoon, the lack of braking action reporting equipment, the quality of the CCJ runway, the punitive policies by the regulator and airlines. Its is all the slices of cheese aligning together, leading to this unfortunate incident.

I understood that as they went over the cliff, one of the aircrew quickly shut down both donks. Which is easily done with one hand, in one move, on the 737NG. Probably saved a lot of lives, if correct.

To make a fair comparison, you'd need to include the -600, -700, and -900, if you are comparing to all A320 variants built.

Nonetheless, your point stands. the 737's seems to star in many of these overrun headlines (also in somewhat more benign inicidents that end up with just some wheels in the grass/arrester strip and dented ego's). With fleets this big and (assumingly) being operating similarly challenging environments (wet poorly maintained runways) and by similarly gifted/talented aircrews, it is striking how much more often we see 737's going of the edge.

And yes I know human brains (including my own) are particularly useless at interpreting these types of statistics, and we really like seeing patterns that reinforce our own biases...but still...

​​​​​​in gust conditions with speed fluctuations 737 needs to flown to hold flight path. Airbus holds the flight path with ATHR holding the speed it easier to handle. GS mini is better concept than flying a fixed addition which needs to be bled during flare. Besides 737 800 airframe is known to break up in excursions due to manufacturing compromises. There was documentary on this.

If the weather was really bad and there was a thunderstorm over the field .. what were they doing there in the first place?

If I remember correctly, most runways in India are not grooved, making them more prone to hydroplaning.

I have many thousands of hours on the B737-800.
Its not the aircraft.
B737-800 does just fine on a wet runway.
Pre Covid there was a B737 takeoff or landing every 3 seconds somewhere around the world.
Not the airport.
2800 meters with an ILS.
Like thousands of other B737 Pilots I have always had great confidence in the aircraft.
If you’ve got a HUD it’s about as good as it gets in difficult conditions.
No experience numpties should spare us all their no nothing commentary.
Boeing has had the misfortune of selling hundreds of aircraft to operators who don’t know what they are doing.
The never ending story...............

With TS/RA you never know how bad the weather is until you arrive at the MDA. Also it’s very localized and changeable. 5 minutes either way and it might have been an uneventful approach and landing.

And then there’s the elephant in the room, no one ever talks about - the well disguised pressures on crew to not divert because of cost and inconvenience to the company. Careers are made and broken on managements perceptions of a pilot’s propensity to divert.

Always easy to criticise from the comfort of an armchair.

With or without covid, do you really expect the airline to schedule a crew layover instead of return flight 2 sectors by 4 hours each???

lucille

mmmmm, I’m not flying with you then.......

lucille

Really??? At both airlines I worked for.. TS within 10 nm of the field .. no take off or landing allowed.

Landing performance
 

Having asked the question earlier - 'what is the basis of the landing performance (OLD/FOLD, actual) and thus what could be, should have been expected in these conditions', there is no response. Any 737-800 operators on line, or not knowing …

How does the -800 differ from previous variants; adequate performance, but more difficult to be precise in approach and landing speed, touch down point, crosswind. A 'slippery', aircraft, a bit of a handful, better if flown fast; any comments ?

The overrun area, irrespective of length, condition, etc, does not respect rank, status, qualifications, or experience once beyond the end of the runway.

SOPS

You used to fly for EK? I've been to DXB when there was CB's all around. Not often, but it happens. EK did not stop all operations that time. Never seen EK diverting when flying into airports in India either. CB's all around BOM. Ops normal.
India is a nightmare in the monsoon season. What looks like a long runway may have a long underrun. 27 BOM is one example. None of the runways are grooved. They are often very uneven, so you bounce along after landing with the tires hardly in contact with the surface. Add tailwind and a heavy 737-800 with high approach speeds (higher than the A320, I firmly belive this is a big factor in the overrun competition). This is a very challenging situation. You need to put it down exactly where you are supposed to. Or before. -800 has a pitch of 0 degrees on final with FL40. Time and time again I see pilots ending up high on short final because of this. You have to keep the nose down to avoid it. Max brakes, max reverse, FL40.
From 737 captains post higher up, about 2400 m landing distance and 11-13 kts tailwind... This was a bad set up form the moment they started the approach.

I don't think the captain should be praised as a hero just yet. How old was he, BTW?

May I humbly request all to stop questioning the pilots decisions in this case. They had paid with their dear lives. There is absolutely no point saying “they should have done that, they shouldn’t have done that”.

Published technical data are flight tests figures done in a certain condition. In my 30 years of real life commercial jet flying, there is no two sets of conditions that are the same. No two runways are the same, the same runway is also not the same with different depth of water/contaminant. Let’s not forget water/ contaminant in real life is not uniform. A B777 or A330 stopping performance is better than a B737.

Here are some questions. Did you notice some tires have more grooves than others on the same aircraft? Does this impact the stopping performance? Which type of tires your airline chose to use and did they made that decision purely based on economics instead of functionality? Did the manufacturer specify standing water depth limit for landing? Are these tires suitable for a place with over 3000mm of annual rainfall? Does the airport report standing water depth?(not common).

Every incident gives some valuable lessons to the industry. Let’s just focus in learning’em.

Understand the logistics of a Repatriation flight, its not just one sector, a ground time of 30-40 mins and push back. They board 10-15 passengers at a time, the passengers wear their personal protective equipment the airline provided on on the jet way. After landing you have to wait in the airplane for an hour if someone landed before you and there is rush at the immigration, to avoid over crowding the airport.
Its not the 8 hours of flying that matters, its the duty period.

For a country with heavy air traffic and annual monsoons, one would have assumed that India would have invested in grooved runways and ground weather radar at all major airports. Sadly, India remains a very weak nation in terms of quality of its aviation infrastructure.

MissChief

Perhaps their investment in Space should be diverted into aviation?

flightleader

Doing this is a one step plan to one day repeating any mistakes they made.

To suggest that we don't learn from their mistakes out of respect/grief is ridiculous.

I hope this view isn't a common way of thinking in the airline culture of that region..