Miracle in Jaipur
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Miracle in Jaipur
Heroic Air India Captain makes blind landing in zero visibility. While no passenger was injured, the aircraft - AI's oldest - was damaged beyond repair.
Visibility: Zero
Fuel: Empty
Lives at stake: 173
An Air India pilot on Sunday made a 'blind landing' in Jaipur in zero visibility, saving the lives of 173 passengers on board.
The Air India flight 890 from Guwahati was scheduled to land in Delhi, but was diverted to Jaipur as the Indira Gandhi Airport was shut due to heavy fog.
Unfortunately for pilot Captain Jalal Vats, who had by then been flying for more than 12 hours, visibility at Jaipur's Sanganer Airport was also zero.
Suspecting he may not have enough fuel for any more detours, Captain Vats decided to land the flight using the Instrument Landing System, which helps with landing in low visibility.
As the Airbus 320 type aircraft landed off the centre line of the runway, it careened onto unpaved surface. As the pilot tried to correct course, the left wing hit an unidentified object.
On inspection, ground officials found that the aircraft had run out of fuel, which turned out to be blessing in disguise. Directorate General of Civil Aviation officials said since the aircraft had been airborne for over 5 hours, it had run out of fuel by the time of landing, preventing it from exploding on impact.
"Captain Vats saved our lives," said Aastha Patel, a passenger. "The way we were thrown about during landing told us it was a very bad landing. But only when we alighted did we realise the extent of the damage."
While Captain Vats's manoeuvre helped save 173 lives, officials said the damage suffered by the plane - its landing gear and tyres were wrecked and half of its left wing was ripped off - meant that it will never fly again. The plane, commissioned in 1991, was Air India's oldest serving aircraft. DGCA has ordered an investigation and has derostered Captain Vats till the probe is over.
"Prima facie, we have concluded that the aircraft landed almost into a nearby drain, damaging the wheel in the process," said a DGCA official. "The aircraft also hit some object which ripped off the wings making it unserviceable. The aircraft will have to be written off."
According to DGCA sources Capt Vats and his crew began the day at 10:45 am, and landed in Jaipur at 11 pm. "The crew were at the end of a very long duty period," said an airline official. "They operated Delhi-Guwahati-Imphal-Guwahati-Delhi, where they were number 12 in the landing sequence. As the visibility dropped to less than 50m in Delhi, they were diverted to Jaipur. The weather in Jaipur also dropped to zero and the stress factor on the pilots would have been very high."
Flight operations at Sanganer were disrupted with 15 flights, including three international ones, being delayed as the runway remained blocked overnight.
Normal service resumed only on Monday afternoon. Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Committee member Capt Mohan Ranganathan said several factors may have contributed to the accident.
"There is fatigue, stress due to zero visibility and the knowledge of being low on fuel," said Ranganathan. "Under these conditions, the heart rate of the pilot would have been extremely high and the body would have experienced sugar depletion, resulting in momentary disorientation."
He did not rule out a system error. He said if the pilot was on ILS and was following a localiser (an instrument that provides runway guidance), and there was a signal error, the pilot may gotten wrong directions.
"If a multipath error had happened, the pilot could be pushed out of alignment to the centreline," he said. "A multipath error is caused by large reflecting objects, like other aircraft parked nearby, which can cause interference to the ILS signal. These disturbances can cause the ILS signal to deviate from its nominal position and thus cause deviation to an aircraft in approach that it becomes unacceptable. While the investigation should bring out the facts, the pilot did his assigned job. He had to do it."
Miracle in Jaipur - Mumbai Mirror
Visibility: Zero
Fuel: Empty
Lives at stake: 173
An Air India pilot on Sunday made a 'blind landing' in Jaipur in zero visibility, saving the lives of 173 passengers on board.
The Air India flight 890 from Guwahati was scheduled to land in Delhi, but was diverted to Jaipur as the Indira Gandhi Airport was shut due to heavy fog.
Unfortunately for pilot Captain Jalal Vats, who had by then been flying for more than 12 hours, visibility at Jaipur's Sanganer Airport was also zero.
Suspecting he may not have enough fuel for any more detours, Captain Vats decided to land the flight using the Instrument Landing System, which helps with landing in low visibility.
As the Airbus 320 type aircraft landed off the centre line of the runway, it careened onto unpaved surface. As the pilot tried to correct course, the left wing hit an unidentified object.
On inspection, ground officials found that the aircraft had run out of fuel, which turned out to be blessing in disguise. Directorate General of Civil Aviation officials said since the aircraft had been airborne for over 5 hours, it had run out of fuel by the time of landing, preventing it from exploding on impact.
"Captain Vats saved our lives," said Aastha Patel, a passenger. "The way we were thrown about during landing told us it was a very bad landing. But only when we alighted did we realise the extent of the damage."
While Captain Vats's manoeuvre helped save 173 lives, officials said the damage suffered by the plane - its landing gear and tyres were wrecked and half of its left wing was ripped off - meant that it will never fly again. The plane, commissioned in 1991, was Air India's oldest serving aircraft. DGCA has ordered an investigation and has derostered Captain Vats till the probe is over.
"Prima facie, we have concluded that the aircraft landed almost into a nearby drain, damaging the wheel in the process," said a DGCA official. "The aircraft also hit some object which ripped off the wings making it unserviceable. The aircraft will have to be written off."
According to DGCA sources Capt Vats and his crew began the day at 10:45 am, and landed in Jaipur at 11 pm. "The crew were at the end of a very long duty period," said an airline official. "They operated Delhi-Guwahati-Imphal-Guwahati-Delhi, where they were number 12 in the landing sequence. As the visibility dropped to less than 50m in Delhi, they were diverted to Jaipur. The weather in Jaipur also dropped to zero and the stress factor on the pilots would have been very high."
Flight operations at Sanganer were disrupted with 15 flights, including three international ones, being delayed as the runway remained blocked overnight.
Normal service resumed only on Monday afternoon. Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Committee member Capt Mohan Ranganathan said several factors may have contributed to the accident.
"There is fatigue, stress due to zero visibility and the knowledge of being low on fuel," said Ranganathan. "Under these conditions, the heart rate of the pilot would have been extremely high and the body would have experienced sugar depletion, resulting in momentary disorientation."
He did not rule out a system error. He said if the pilot was on ILS and was following a localiser (an instrument that provides runway guidance), and there was a signal error, the pilot may gotten wrong directions.
"If a multipath error had happened, the pilot could be pushed out of alignment to the centreline," he said. "A multipath error is caused by large reflecting objects, like other aircraft parked nearby, which can cause interference to the ILS signal. These disturbances can cause the ILS signal to deviate from its nominal position and thus cause deviation to an aircraft in approach that it becomes unacceptable. While the investigation should bring out the facts, the pilot did his assigned job. He had to do it."
Miracle in Jaipur - Mumbai Mirror
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Have to give credit to the Pilot and crew , no one died . Although how did they manage to find themselves in this situation ? . There are adequate whether resources available and the fuel must be planned according to established regulations. As my good instructor used to say - Anything can go wrong will go wrong and it will all happen at the same time. You can never be too careful.
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Not too long ago.
Are the Mildura fog incident warnings being ignored? | Plane Talking
A reminder.
The ATSB will also launch a research study into the unreliability of aviation meteorological forecasts.
There is not a word in the ATSB report about inquiring into the greedy, stupid and dangerous situation that regulatory failure in terms of fuel requirements for Australian domestic flights gives rise to, and which exposed Qantas and Virgin 737s to such a dangerous situation as the one that arose at Mildura this last winter.
There is not a word in the ATSB report about inquiring into the greedy, stupid and dangerous situation that regulatory failure in terms of fuel requirements for Australian domestic flights gives rise to, and which exposed Qantas and Virgin 737s to such a dangerous situation as the one that arose at Mildura this last winter.
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Next time Google.
Incident: Virgin Australia B738 at Mildura on Jun 18th 2013, landed below weather minima and substantially below final fuel reserve
By Simon Hradecky, created Thursday, Jul 18th 2013 16:12Z, last updated Thursday, Dec 19th 2013 14:52Z
A Virgin Australia Boeing 737-800, registration VH-YIR performing flight VA-1384 from Brisbane,QL to Adelaide,SA (Australia) with 85 passengers and 6 crew, had been dispatched with a weather forecast, that indicated clear weather in Adelaide with no necessity to plan for an alternate aerodrome, the crew departed with sufficient fuel to arrive at Adelaide with 2500 kg of fuel remaining giving them about 30 minutets of flying time on top of the required final reserve. When the aircraft was about to reach the top of descent and after being handed off to the next sector, the controller asked whether the crew was aware of the fog in Adelaide, the crew replied in the negative and immediately began to collect information about weather including a number of alternate aerodromes. The weather forecast for Mildura,VI (Australia) indicated visibility above 10km with a broken cloud layer at 3900 feet. Based on these informations the crew decided, that they needed to divert at a point 90km ahead of Adelaide in order to arrive at Mildura with 2000kg of fuel remaining. The crew contacted Adelaide tower to obtain information about current weather, then decided to divert to Mildura.
Due to the reported cloud layer the crew elected to perform a DME arrival and perform a visual approach to Midura's runway 27. As precaution the crew also loaded the RNAV instrument approach for runway 27 into the FMS. The crew followed their plan and was on approach to Mildura, when they heard a preceding Saab 340 go-around due to fog and divert to Broken Hill. As the aircraft descended it became clear the weather was substantially different than reported, and abandoned the plan to carry out a visual approach.
A Qantas Boeing 737-800 registration VH-VYK, also diverting from Adelaide, reported on frequency on approach to Mildura and inquired intentions, see Incident: Qantas B738 at Mildura on Jun 18th 2013, landed below weather minima. The crews determined that the Qantas aircraft had even less fuel than VH-YIR, hence the crew of VH-YIR decided to delay their approach and permit the VYK land first. Following the RNAV runway 27 approach VH-VYK landed safely and advised they had become visual with the runway at 150 feet below MDA (MDA 660 feet MSL, 493 feet AGL), the visibility then was 3000 meters.
The crew of VH-YIR advised that they would need to land at Mildura due to insufficient fuel to divert and would need to declare emergency within 10 minutes and checked with VH-VYK whether runway lights were on and for the actual QNH, then the crew began their RNAV runway 27 approach planning for a MDA of 300 feet MSL (137 feet AGL, official MDA 660 feet MSL). The aircraft entered fog at about 800 feet MSL, the visibility ahead of the aircraft virtually disappeared. The captain was pilot flying concentrating on flying the aircraft with the first officer visually assessing their position over ground. The first officer recalled that he looked down through the right hand window to get any ground reference. Just when the captain called for go-around the first officer sighted the threshold and during the go-around the crossing runway 18/36.
During the climb following the go-around the aircraft became visual again at 800 feet, the aircraft joined a right hand traffic circuit. The crew assessed they were committed to land on their next approach no matter what. The crew briefed cabin crew and raised their seats in order to improve downward visibility from the cockpit. The crew positioned for another RNAV runway 27 approach, descending through 600 feet MSL the crew instructed "BRACE BRACE BRACE" to passengers, the first officer noticed the same ground features he saw during the first approach.
When the first officer assessed they were over the runway, however being unable to determine how far down, he heard the captain disconnect the autopilot and fly the aircraft onto ground for a firm touch down. Following touchdown the crew got better visual cues and conducted normal roll out and taxi procedures. After vacating the runway the captain advised cabin crew they were on the ground and the emergency was over.
On Jul 18th 2013 the ATSB released their preliminary report stating the aircraft landed with 535kg of fuel remaining, well below required final fuel reserve.
On Dec 19th 2013 the ATSB released an interim report to introduce a two safety actions taken by the ATSB: a safety forum with respect to provision of operational information is planned and analysis of reliability of weather forecasts is being conducted.
The investigation of both events of VH-YIR and VH-VYK, rated serious incidents, is ongoing.
Weather forecast for Mildura at flight briefing:
Mildura TAF
TAF AMD YMIA 171758Z 1718/1812
24005KT 9999 SCT030 BKN060
BECMG 1718/1720 21006KT 9999 SCT006 SCT030
BECMG 1800/1802 18010KT 9999 SCT030 SCT050
BECMG 1807/1809 16008KT 9999 SCT040
TEMPO 1719/1724 BKN006
RMK
T 06 05 07 13 Q 1016 1018 1020 1019
Mildura METAR
METAR YMIA 171900Z AUTO 29005KT 9999 SCT048 06/05 Q1017 RMK RF00.0/000.0
Weather forecase while enroute:
Mildura TAF
No change from previous
Mildura METAR
METAR YMIA 172030Z 27003KT 9999 FEW038 05/05 Q1017 RMK RF00.0/000.2
Weather during diversion:
Adelaide SPECI
SPECI YPAD 172130Z 06004KT 9999 MIFG FEW022 05/04 Q1020 RMK RF00.0/000.0 TTF: NOSIG
Mildura METAR
METAR YMIA 172130Z 27004KT 9999 FEW040 05/05 Q1018 RMK RF00.0/000.2
Weather with VH-YIR over Mildura:
SPECI YMIA 172348Z 19007KT 0900 FG OVC001 07/07 Q1019 RMK RF00.0/000.0
Weather at landing:
SPECI YMIA 180011Z 20006KT 0200 FG OVC001 07/07 Q1020 RMK RF00.0/000.0
Incident: Virgin Australia B738 at Mildura on Jun 18th 2013, landed below weather minima and substantially below final fuel reserve
By Simon Hradecky, created Thursday, Jul 18th 2013 16:12Z, last updated Thursday, Dec 19th 2013 14:52Z
A Virgin Australia Boeing 737-800, registration VH-YIR performing flight VA-1384 from Brisbane,QL to Adelaide,SA (Australia) with 85 passengers and 6 crew, had been dispatched with a weather forecast, that indicated clear weather in Adelaide with no necessity to plan for an alternate aerodrome, the crew departed with sufficient fuel to arrive at Adelaide with 2500 kg of fuel remaining giving them about 30 minutets of flying time on top of the required final reserve. When the aircraft was about to reach the top of descent and after being handed off to the next sector, the controller asked whether the crew was aware of the fog in Adelaide, the crew replied in the negative and immediately began to collect information about weather including a number of alternate aerodromes. The weather forecast for Mildura,VI (Australia) indicated visibility above 10km with a broken cloud layer at 3900 feet. Based on these informations the crew decided, that they needed to divert at a point 90km ahead of Adelaide in order to arrive at Mildura with 2000kg of fuel remaining. The crew contacted Adelaide tower to obtain information about current weather, then decided to divert to Mildura.
Due to the reported cloud layer the crew elected to perform a DME arrival and perform a visual approach to Midura's runway 27. As precaution the crew also loaded the RNAV instrument approach for runway 27 into the FMS. The crew followed their plan and was on approach to Mildura, when they heard a preceding Saab 340 go-around due to fog and divert to Broken Hill. As the aircraft descended it became clear the weather was substantially different than reported, and abandoned the plan to carry out a visual approach.
A Qantas Boeing 737-800 registration VH-VYK, also diverting from Adelaide, reported on frequency on approach to Mildura and inquired intentions, see Incident: Qantas B738 at Mildura on Jun 18th 2013, landed below weather minima. The crews determined that the Qantas aircraft had even less fuel than VH-YIR, hence the crew of VH-YIR decided to delay their approach and permit the VYK land first. Following the RNAV runway 27 approach VH-VYK landed safely and advised they had become visual with the runway at 150 feet below MDA (MDA 660 feet MSL, 493 feet AGL), the visibility then was 3000 meters.
The crew of VH-YIR advised that they would need to land at Mildura due to insufficient fuel to divert and would need to declare emergency within 10 minutes and checked with VH-VYK whether runway lights were on and for the actual QNH, then the crew began their RNAV runway 27 approach planning for a MDA of 300 feet MSL (137 feet AGL, official MDA 660 feet MSL). The aircraft entered fog at about 800 feet MSL, the visibility ahead of the aircraft virtually disappeared. The captain was pilot flying concentrating on flying the aircraft with the first officer visually assessing their position over ground. The first officer recalled that he looked down through the right hand window to get any ground reference. Just when the captain called for go-around the first officer sighted the threshold and during the go-around the crossing runway 18/36.
During the climb following the go-around the aircraft became visual again at 800 feet, the aircraft joined a right hand traffic circuit. The crew assessed they were committed to land on their next approach no matter what. The crew briefed cabin crew and raised their seats in order to improve downward visibility from the cockpit. The crew positioned for another RNAV runway 27 approach, descending through 600 feet MSL the crew instructed "BRACE BRACE BRACE" to passengers, the first officer noticed the same ground features he saw during the first approach.
When the first officer assessed they were over the runway, however being unable to determine how far down, he heard the captain disconnect the autopilot and fly the aircraft onto ground for a firm touch down. Following touchdown the crew got better visual cues and conducted normal roll out and taxi procedures. After vacating the runway the captain advised cabin crew they were on the ground and the emergency was over.
On Jul 18th 2013 the ATSB released their preliminary report stating the aircraft landed with 535kg of fuel remaining, well below required final fuel reserve.
On Dec 19th 2013 the ATSB released an interim report to introduce a two safety actions taken by the ATSB: a safety forum with respect to provision of operational information is planned and analysis of reliability of weather forecasts is being conducted.
The investigation of both events of VH-YIR and VH-VYK, rated serious incidents, is ongoing.
Weather forecast for Mildura at flight briefing:
Mildura TAF
TAF AMD YMIA 171758Z 1718/1812
24005KT 9999 SCT030 BKN060
BECMG 1718/1720 21006KT 9999 SCT006 SCT030
BECMG 1800/1802 18010KT 9999 SCT030 SCT050
BECMG 1807/1809 16008KT 9999 SCT040
TEMPO 1719/1724 BKN006
RMK
T 06 05 07 13 Q 1016 1018 1020 1019
Mildura METAR
METAR YMIA 171900Z AUTO 29005KT 9999 SCT048 06/05 Q1017 RMK RF00.0/000.0
Weather forecase while enroute:
Mildura TAF
No change from previous
Mildura METAR
METAR YMIA 172030Z 27003KT 9999 FEW038 05/05 Q1017 RMK RF00.0/000.2
Weather during diversion:
Adelaide SPECI
SPECI YPAD 172130Z 06004KT 9999 MIFG FEW022 05/04 Q1020 RMK RF00.0/000.0 TTF: NOSIG
Mildura METAR
METAR YMIA 172130Z 27004KT 9999 FEW040 05/05 Q1018 RMK RF00.0/000.2
Weather with VH-YIR over Mildura:
SPECI YMIA 172348Z 19007KT 0900 FG OVC001 07/07 Q1019 RMK RF00.0/000.0
Weather at landing:
SPECI YMIA 180011Z 20006KT 0200 FG OVC001 07/07 Q1020 RMK RF00.0/000.0
Incident: Virgin Australia B738 at Mildura on Jun 18th 2013, landed below weather minima and substantially below final fuel reserve
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In light of all these comments, if you were the pilot of the flights to Mildura or perhaps the flight to Delhi, what else would you have done for a different outcome?
You could argue that all the conditions were lining up for radiation fog to form but hey, hindsight is 20/20.
You could argue that all the conditions were lining up for radiation fog to form but hey, hindsight is 20/20.
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In light of all these comments, if you were the pilot of the flights to Mildura or perhaps the flight to Delhi, what else would you have done for a different outcome?
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@ Cpt Apache.
I do not mean to diminish the achievement of the crew. On the contrary, without details to situation which led to the diversion from Delhi, the diversions to Mildura at least, I felt were situations which any competent crew could have gotten into and no amount of legislation could have changed that.
From the critics, I am genuinely interested in hearing whether anything else could have been done differently.
I do not mean to diminish the achievement of the crew. On the contrary, without details to situation which led to the diversion from Delhi, the diversions to Mildura at least, I felt were situations which any competent crew could have gotten into and no amount of legislation could have changed that.
From the critics, I am genuinely interested in hearing whether anything else could have been done differently.
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Dynamite1 said,( on a different forum)
@latetonite
After reading about Mildura, atleast now you know how that could happen.
Would like to see our smartypants bring one in when sudden unexpected fog zeroes all the landing strips on his FMC.
After reading about Mildura, atleast now you know how that could happen.
Originally Posted by glide approach
From the critics, I am genuinely interested in hearing whether anything else could have been done differently.
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And it isn't the first time here either.
Bhubaneswar, May 13: As many as five persons - three passengers and two crew members - sustained injuries after three Kolkata-bound flights made an emergency landing here at Bijupatnaik airport on Sunday evening due to turbulent weather, sources said.
The flights ran out of fuel as they had to hover over Kolkata airport for nearly 20 minutes struggling to land in extremely bad weather.
After touching down at the airport here in Bhubaneswar, the injured passengers were taken to hospital for treatment. The injury was caused due to unexpected jerks while landing. Some crew members of the flights vomited due to suffocation. Bhubaneswar airport authorities have begun emergency operations.
Both the flights had to hover over the Kolkata airport for nearly 20 minutes and then sought permission of Bhubaneswar air traffic control (ATC) for emergency landing," said airport director Sharad Kumar.
Passengers with minor injuries were given first aid and two persons sustaining serious injuries were shifted to a hospital by ambulance, he said.
The flights ran out of fuel as they had to hover over Kolkata airport for nearly 20 minutes struggling to land in extremely bad weather.
After touching down at the airport here in Bhubaneswar, the injured passengers were taken to hospital for treatment. The injury was caused due to unexpected jerks while landing. Some crew members of the flights vomited due to suffocation. Bhubaneswar airport authorities have begun emergency operations.
"Two Indigo airlines flights from Raipur to Kolkata and Bangalore to Kolkata and an Air India flight from Agartala to Kolkata sought emergency landing at the airport here due to inclement weather in Kolkata.
Passengers with minor injuries were given first aid and two persons sustaining serious injuries were shifted to a hospital by ambulance, he said.
Of course, latetonite and captjns and the other experts would have done a better job there too.
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As it happened, i saw this cycloon on CNN two days ago. I would have informed dispatch of the possibility not to arrive at detination. If they wanted me to go, i could do that and have a look. Maybe divert captain Apache, you rely on ops to cancel your flight? Anything overlimits, including turbulence makes me divert.
