Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi (MS)

New Delhi, Jul 24: The license of Captain Pravin Tumram, pilot of the Air India Express pilot, who overshot the runway at Mangaluru International Airport on June 30 was suspended for a year by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Tuesday, July 23.

The passengers in the flight IX-384 had a miraculous escape as the tyres of the aircraft got stuck in the sludge that was on the area beyond the runway. The final investigation by DGCA found that the final approach of the aircraft was unstable, the speed of the flight was high and it touched down on a point farther than the recommended. The pilot had touched the runway 900 meters (2,952 feet) beyond the stipulated mark for the same on the runway which caused the flight to go out of the runway and caused damage to the aircraft.

The threshold area is from where the runway strip begins. Next to threshold area is the touchdown zone, where the aircraft should touch down while landing. According to sources, the license of Pravin Tumram, the captain would be suspended for a period of one year, starting from the date of the mishap.

Flight belonging to the same airline met with disaster in May 2010 in which 158 people lost their lives due to a similar oversight by the pilot of the aircraft.

A court of inquiry, established by the central government had found that the 2010 disaster was the failure of pilot-in-command's failure to discontinue the unstabilized the approach and his persistence in continuing with landing, despite three calls from the first officer to 'Go Around' and repeated warnings from Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System (EGPWS).

The final touchdown of the ill-fated aircraft that crashed in 2010 was at about 5,200 feet (1584 meters) from the beginning of runway 24, which left just 2800 feet of runway for the aircraft till the end of the paved surface to stop the aircraft as per the court which conducted the inquiry.