Mangalore plane crash: Capt Ahluwalia could only give verbal commands

Mangalore Today News Network

September 7: As reported earlier, Captain H. S. Ahluwalia, the co-pilot of the ill-fated Air India Express Boeing 747, which plunged into the valley of Kenjar, had repeatedly told Flight Commander Captain Z. Glusica to avoid landing on that fateful day and take a go-round instead. The public hearing of the Court of Inquiry (CoI) commissioned to investigate the circumstances of the crash have revealed that the copilot had no power to do anything else except give verbal commands.

Captain Ahluwalia’s friends, family members, and seniors, who deposed before the CoI at its public hearing in Delhi on Monday, said that he was a disciplined and competent pilot. The peers of Captain Glusica also said that he was a highly experienced pilot.

The pilots of AI were interrogated by the CoI, which comprises Retired Air Marshal B. N. Gokhale and Captain Ron Nagar. During this hearing, a close friend of Captain Ahluwalia, who is also an AI Express pilot, spoke about the norms of the airline in the event of a crash.

A go-round is a safety procedure during which the pilot aborts his attempts to land and instead takes a round before attempting a second landing.