Fatal Plane Crash in India

Ok, in all seriousness, I looked into the airport and it is over 9300 feet long and quite wide. It should have been plenty long to land and stop even in heavy rain. However, the weather reports at the time light rain and light winds. The airport elevation is slightly above sea level. The airport has at least one precision approach to each runway (2).

On the surface, weather is unlikely to be the cause. However, when aircraft overrun a runway like this the most common cause is pilot error. Those errors tend to be flying faster than the recommended approach speed, landing past the target touchdown point or late/light use of deceleration devices.

When aircraft land, the pilots calculate the landing distance based on temperature, elevation, wind and runway slope and contamination (water, snow, slush, etc). Typically, at sea level, a 737NG would need 5000 feet to stop in still air. If they land with a head wind, that number is reduced. If the runway is wet with no ponding, that landing distance increases between 15 and 25%. If the runway is covered in water, the landing distance will be close to double.

If the pilots are faster than their target speed, the landing distance increases exponentially with the first 10 knots increasing the total runway required by 15%. Late application of the brakes increases the landing distance by 300-400 feet per second of delay.

It is possible the runway was too wet to land, but it is hard to tell from the weather reports. The tower should have issues a field condition report prior to landing, but that would likely just be the tower controller looking at the runway from his chair and giving an educated guess. Also, this runway appears to be asphalt. Asphalt runways are cheap and easy to build as well as repair. However, asphalt is oil based and does not allow water to be soaked up like a concrete runway will. This increases the possibility that the runway had water standing on it.

There does appear to be EMAS at each end of the runway. If that is the case, it likely saved a lot of lives. EMAS is a weird concrete mix that lets cars, trucks and such drive on it but when something heavy, like an airplane, is on it the concrete gives way. It works a lot like a sanded run away truck lane in the mountains does. The landing gear sinks and the aircraft stops abruptly.


The approaches to the airport were both precision approaches that should have put the aircraft in an appropriate position to land.

So, best guess is that the investigators will determine the pilots screwed up. There is a slim possibility that the brakes malfunctioned on landing, but that isn't likely.

That there was no fire seems to indicate that there was little fuel left in the plane. It's possible the pilot felt he had no choice but to try to land the second time; he may have thought there wasn't enough fuel for a third try. One of the reports said the plane touched down too far into the runway, as well, leaving not enough room to stop.

The bulk of the fuel is stored in the wings. The wings are intact. Given the fact the rain was significant and persistent and the metal was sliding on wet vegetation, a fire is highly unlikely even if the fuel was spilled.