MUMBAI, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Pilot error and a failure to follow safety guidelines probably caused last year's Air India Express crash, which killed 21 people, the country's worst aviation accident in a decade, investigators reported on Saturday.
During heavy rain at Calicut International Airport in the southern state of Kerala on Aug. 8, 2020, a Boeing 737, returning Indians stranded in Dubai due to the Coronavirus pandemic, overshot the runway and crashed.
The pilot's failure to follow standard operating procedures is the probable cause for the accident, according to the report by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, a Ministry of Civil Aviation division that investigates crashes.
In the 257-page report after a year-long investigation, the agency says the pilot "continued an unstabilized approach and landed beyond the touchdown zone, halfway down the runway" instead of going around.
An aircraft pilot may perform a go-around in the event that an attempt at landing is deemed unsafe.
Despite being ordered to go around by the pilot monitoring the landing, the pilot flying the aircraft failed to comply, the agency said, and the pilot monitoring the landing also did not take control of the aircraft.
Despite one previous failed landing attempt, the aircraft overran the 2,700-meter (8,900-foot) runway before it overran. The runways are known as tabletop runways because the ends of their lengths have steep drops.
At Kozhikode, the aircraft crash has been India's worst accident involving a passenger airplane since 2010, when a flight from Dubai overshot a table-top runway in Mangalore and slid down a hill, killing 158 people.