Chandigarh, December 6
In less than three months of the tragic crash of Kingair executive aircraft at Sahnewal, extra-adventurous Punjab Civil Aviation Department had yet another escapade that would have led to yet another tragedy.
A trainee pilot, along with chief flying instructor G.S. Mangat, engineer Mandeep Singh and Mahant Atma Ram of Jalla village onboard, undertook his cross-country flight from Jaipur. It made an emergency landing at Patiala Aviation Club, almost two hours behind the permissible time for a cross-country flight to land at a strip that is without night landing facilities.
Not only the standing instructions of the director-general (Civil Aviation) on cross-country flying for trainee pilots were violated, even the advise given by the Air Traffic Controller to divert the flight to the Chandigarh airport, that has night landing facilities, were overlooked.
After two abortive attempts, the trainee aircraft finally made the emergency landing, shortly after 7 pm on the runway that was illuminated by headlights of several four-wheelers.
Investigations reveal that on a cross-country flight, a trainee pilot is not permitted to carry any extra passenger onboard. But, Mahant Atma Ram was given a special permission to be onboard the aircraft.
The DGCA guidelines also warrant that for an aircraft to land at a strip without night landing facilities, it should be above the airfield half-an-hour before sunset. On that day the sunset time was 5.25 pm.
Insiders at the club maintain that the trainee aircraft took off from Jaipur at 4.11 pm. Since the distance between Jaipur and Chandigarh is about 230 nautical miles, it could not have taken less than 2 hours and 20 minutes to reach Patiala as the cruising speed of the trainee aircraft was only 100 nautical miles per hour.
It was pitch dark when the aircraft arrived over the Patiala airfield and sought permission for landing. The ATC, controlled by the Air Force, advised the aircraft to divert to Chandigarh and land there, as Patiala had no night landing facilities.
The pilot, however, insisted on landing at Patiala. One probable reason given for defying the ATC was perhaps the aircraft did not have enough fuel to divert to Chandigarh, as it would have taken it almost half an hour to reach there.
It was one of the clerks of the club who quickly arranged four-wheelers to lit up the runway and help the aircraft make an emergency landing in its third attempt.
