Posted at 8:17 a.m. PDT Tuesday, September 12, 2000

Report: Crash warnings came too late on Indian plane

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The pilots of an Indian Boeing 737-200 that crashed in July killing 58 people had only nine seconds warning before the plane slammed into the ground, according to a report released Tuesday.

The preliminary report, the first of its kind to be published on the Internet by the Indian government, found that there were no technical defects on the 20-year-old Alliance Air plane.

It said the pilots were fit and rested, and the weather was fine as the plane came in to land at the airport of the eastern city of Patna, about 650 miles southeast of New Delhi, on July 17.

The crash provoked a stormy debate in India over civil aviation safety standards and the age of the fleet run by Alliance Air, a domestic carrier which was carved out of state-owned Indian Airlines in 1986.

A transcript from flight CD7412's cockpit voice recorder showed one pilot asking the other for a newspaper and one whistling to himself 10 minutes before it belly-flopped into a housing complex just short of the airport.

PILOTS' LAST WORDS

Thirty seconds before the crash, as the plane was being lined up for landing, one pilot radioed air traffic control: ``I would like to do one 360 (degree turn) due to high on approach sir.''

``Confirm aerodrome in sight,'' he continued.

``Affirm. Sir affirm. Field in sight.''

``Roger, report final Runway 25 after carrying out 360.

``Roger.''

Six seconds later a ``stall warning'' was heard.

``Gear oopar lelo (Take up the landing gear),'' cried one of the pilots.

Two seconds later a ``gear unsafe'' warning sounded and a ground proximity warning system went off.

Two seconds after that the last recorded word was uttered from CD7412: ``Noooooo....''

Fifty-three of the 58 people aboard were killed along with five people on the ground.

Some of the survivors said they had felt sudden vibrations before the twin-engined plane plummeted to the ground and witnesses said one of the engines was on fire.

The transcript did not contain air controllers' comments.

The preliminary report of the court of inquiry examining the crash came to no conclusions on what turned a routine flight into a disaster.

It said that on July 15 the plane underwent a layover check in the eastern city of Calcutta and the next day ``there were no observed defects'' except for a windshield wiper which was immediately replaced.

The pilot and co-pilot had been declared medically fit just a few months earlier, and both had taken more than 15 hours of rest since their last flight.

The weather over Patna was hazy with broken cloud, but the wind was calm and visibility was 2.5 miles.

The report, which includes graphics from the second ``black box'' -- the flight data recorder -- was published on the Civil Aviation Ministry's Web site (www.civilaviation.nic.in/coi). The government did not say when a full report would be released.

http://www.mercurycenter.com/breaking/docs/016810.htm

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), September 12, 2000