Criminal negligence : 158 dead in Air crash

"It was known and generally understood that the Mangalore airport and the runway is a very tricky runway and the skills of pilot would be put to maximum test while landing in Mangalore."

This is what External Affairs Minister S M Krishna today said about the Mangalore airport.He was reacting to the Air India Express crash which resulted in the death of 158 passengers.Earlier today an Air India Express plane from Dubai with 166 people on board crashed after it overshot the runway while landing at Mangalore airport.

He was also quoted as saying that  "Our worst fears have come true"..!!

I am not sure that the 166 passengers on-board that aircraft which was to land safely in Mangalore knew that 'Mangalore airport and the runway is a very tricky runway and the skills of pilot would be put to maximum test while landing in Mangalore'..!!

Atleast I never heard any thing like this before..

If landing in Mangalore Airport was such risky,I am damn sure that many of those passengers and indeed many who had used the Mangalore Airport till today,would have avoided it and used alternative options.

The blame for the crash may be ultimately laid on the Pilot,but the authorities cannot escape the fact that an Airport which was such risky was made operational and what's more people were not informed of the risk.


About Mangalore Airport (courtesy a news item in rediff  today ) :
The Mangalore airport is considered to be one of the toughest to land since it is located on top of a hill and the runway landing approaches extreme edges on the sides of the hill and hence it is called table-top. The edges of the hill drop into the valley from a height of 300 feet with a short distance of 500 metres on the east side of the runway and 83 metres to 25 metres on the western side. A big disadvantage here is that the runway is not level and the height varies between 90 metres to 83 metres from eastern to western side.

The Mangalore International Airport formerly known as the Bajpe airport was inaugurated in the year 1951. Situated at a distance of 20 kilometres from the city, this airport handles 700 flights at an average every year.
International operations at this airport commenced in the year 2006 and the Air-India Express was the first to commence operations here.


Hope with this tragic accident people are adequately warned and hopefully those who are careful could opt out using this Airport till the authorities does some thing to make it a risk-free Airport..

Unfortunate and perhaps unavoidable victimisation

Below is a report from telegraphindia.com.

Three Muslims have been offloaded from flights in the past two weeks over terror suspicion stemming from an alleged religious bias.

In all such cases, the suspicion turned out to be incorrect. Community leaders say it is a terrible feeling being “constantly under the scanner”, but terror-sniffing security officials suggest they can’t help it.

The latest in the series of such incidents occurred on Wednesday at Delhi airport. A cleric was taken off an Emirates plane to London, questioned all night and reportedly taken into custody before being released because his phone conversation with his wife had alarmed a fellow passenger.

“Jahaz udne wala hai aur hum udne wale hain (the plane will take off and we will fly),” Maulana Noor-ul-Huda was heard saying.

The co-passenger, a woman, thought his words meant the plane would be “blown up” and complained to the captain.

Soon, the 50-year-old, who runs madrasah Darul Uloom in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur, was detained.

Delhi police commissioner Y.S. Dadwal today dubbed the scare “a case of miscommunication”.

But another officer said: “We are sorry for the mistake, but we cannot ignore alerts like these given the security concerns. Also, there is a general state of panic among passengers.”

It isn’t known if passengers would react the same way if they saw someone different from Noor-ul-Huda — who was dressed in traditional Islamic attire and was sporting a beard —use similar words in a plane.

On May 5, a SpiceJet flight from Delhi had to make a “priority landing” in Calcutta after two Russians, including a woman in a burqa, behaved “suspiciously”, claimed some co-passengers who alerted the crew.

The burqa-clad passenger turned out to be a woman. Her large physique had given some the impression she was a man.

Community leaders are not amused.

“These incidents reveal the vulnerability of a Muslim. He is under the scanner wherever he goes and everyone views him with suspicion. It is terrible,’’ said Tanwir Ahammed of the Milli Council.

Abdul Noomani of the Jamiat Ulema put it bluntly. “To many, a conservative Muslim and an Islamic terrorist are the same. For them, a bearded Muslim and Osama bin Laden are one and the same.”

But some take a different line, saying Muslims, too, have to be more mindful of their actions.

“These incidents hurt us. But one should be sensitive towards the environment one lives in and be more careful,’’ said Ahmmed Illyasi of the Imam Sangh. Ghulam Muhammed of Muslim India echoed the sentiment.

Ismail Jaleel of Khilafat said: “There is a general suspicion in the minds of people about Muslims, thanks to the role played by Islamic terrorists across the world. Muslims will be able to overcome this phobia only by denouncing terrorism louder and louder.”

Unfortunate incidents these may be,but as one of the police officer said we cannot ignore alerts because the current international situation is like that.Muslims need to be careful on one hand and on the other side officials need to make sure that innocent passengers are not humiliated.It's ofcourse a difficult balancing act,but one which is absolutely necessary.

It's very unfortunate that an entire community is suffering because of the criminal terror acts of some members of the community.