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Last week, a Jet Airways flight from Mumbai to Jaipur had to return within 45 minutes, after the pilots reportedly “forgot” to turn on the bleed air switch which helps in maintaining cabin pressure. This led to a sudden drop in air pressure inside the aircraft. The situation was scary: oxygen masks were deployed, several passengers developed nosebleeds and bleeding ears, and many reported splitting headaches. Technical snags This is not a stand-alone incident. On September 1, a Pune-bound Airbus A320 neo plane of GoAir had to return after it suffered a technical snag. A few days back, two pilots were grounded for this incident for their “poor handling of emergency” — while they had landed safely, it was later found that the pilots had failed to apply sufficient thrust while landing, which led to a dangerous fall in airspeed. The aircraft also reportedly came in too low and landed well ahead of the touchdown point. Its troubles did not end there. The aircraft suffered a second glitch while moving towards the hangar and had to be towed the rest of the way. Then, on September 11, an Air India flight from Delhi to New York developed “multiple instrument failure”. With all the on-board systems to assist him to land the aircraft in adverse weather out of order, the pilot, in a remarkable display of skill, somehow managed to land the flight on manual and visual controls in Newark. Again, on September 19, an IndiGo flight from Mumbai to Ahmedabad made an emergency landing at its destination after a tyre burst. And earlier this month, an Air India flight to Male, Maldives, landed on an under-construction runway. This is by no means a comprehensive list of the myriad accidents, mishaps and near-misses involving Indian aircraft which are taking place on an almost daily basis. These are the reported ones; many more probably go unnoticed by the public, since they remain confined within an airline or airport operator’s domain. Thankfully, India has not had too many fatal air crashes involving civilian aircraft, despite being the fastest growing aviation market in the Asia Pacific region. Indian airlines are expected to double their fleet strength from the current 600 or so within a decade. But that admirable record, as many of these incidents show, may be more due to luck or human skill rather than anything systemic.
Source : https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/stretched-to-the-limit/article25018364.ece
