(Image source from: keralakaumudi.com)

The Air India Express flight carrying 190 passengers from Dubai skidded from the runway at Kozhikode airport killing 18 people including 2 pilots.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation on Tuesday banned the use of wide body aircraft at Kozhikode Airport in Kerala during the monsoon season following the Air India Express flight tragedy last week.

The DGCA also said that it would conduct an audit on the list of airports that receive heavy rainfall during the monsoon season.

India's aviation watchdog in a statement said that it is taking this measure as a means of abundant caution till monsoon.

When asked about the duration of the ban, the DGCA has said that the exact dates have not been decided yet and they decided to wait till the monsoon season is over to prevent any untoward incidents from happening.

Wide body aircrafts like B747 and A350 have bigger fuel tanks and as a result they can travel longer distances in comparison to narrow body aircrafts like B737 and A320. Moreover, a wide body aircraft needs longer runway length for a proper landing which needs proper view and weather conditions.

The Air India flight carrying 190 passengers including 10 children from Dubai had skidded while landing at Karipur airport in Kozhikode on August 7. As many as 18 people have lost their lives and several passengers were injured in the tragic accident.

According to Kerala Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, among the injured passengers who were admitted to hospital after the accident, 23 passengers are in critical condition and have been put on ventilator while 80 other injured passengers are recovering.

Several reports stated that the table top runway 10 of Kozhikode airport is 2700 meters long and wide body aircraft operations are being permitted at this airport since 2019.

A senior official at DGCA had told to the media that an audit would be conducted in airports of Mumbai and Chennai which are receiving severe rainfall this monsoon.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) working under the civil aviation ministry manages more than 100 airports in India including the one in Kozhikode, Karipur airport.

However, major international airports like Hyderabad, Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai are managed by private companies.

Earlier in this week after the Kozhikode accident, Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said that an inquiry has been ordered the Aircraft Act, black boxes of the flight IX-1344 have been recovered and said that the findings of the investigation will be made public.

By Gayatri Yellayi