Pulled up for panic braking, AI pilot does it again

New Delhi: Eight months ago, when apples stowed in the cockpit’s overhead cabin by the commander fell with a thud, Captain Kanwaljit Kaur, mistaking it for major engine trouble, applied sudden brakes, bringing the Air India aircraft to a screeching halt, bursting tyres and putting at risk nearly 100 passengers.
On November 9, freshly re-instated as a commander, she applied brakes for a second time, aborting a high-speed take-off at Bangalore, again bursting tyres, and risking 90 passengers on board an Air India flight bound for Delhi. This time, she was alarmed by an indication that the nosewheel, which helps navigate the plane during taxiing, may have developed a malfunction.
The flight was cancelled, the passengers transferred to another aircraft. The damaged aircraft has been withdrawn from service and was recently ferried to Delhi for major repairs at the airline’s workshop.
In two corrective trainings that Capt Kaur received so far — the first, after she ‘mistakenly’ flew into the Pak airspace in 2009 and, second, after the apple incident in February this year — the airline’s training committee recommended that she should not be allowed to fly solo.
15/11/11 Indian Express/Smita Aggarwal

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Categories: Air India Nov 2011, airports Nov 2011, Safety Nov 2011