Tired Cabin crew may be a cause for Mangalore Aircrash

Up to 78% of fatal air crashes are caused by human error, of which a majority are because of pilot fatigue, according to the Indian Commercial Pilots' Association. Could this also have caused the Mangalore crash?

The jury is still out on that one, but internal communications of Air India Express accessed clearly show that a shortage of staff was forcing cabin crew to exceed the limit on flying hours imposed by the directorate-general of civil aviation (DGCA). Besides, most airlines are going in for quick turn-around (QTA) flights at night, further raising pilots' stress and fatigue levels.

The crew of Flight IX 812 had left Mangalore at 8pm and flew more than four hours to reach Dubai. Soon, they were busy with walk-around inspections, fuel checks, and weather confirmation. By the time the routine checks were over, passengers were ready to board the flight for the return journey.


"While such schedules may not be in contravention to any written rule, we find it extremely tiring. And this can have dangerous consequences," says a pilot.

Air India Express, the low-cost arm of AI, has 390 cabin crew members on its rolls — a shortage of about 150, according to the airline's trade union. Airline sources also claimed that AI Express pilots too don't get adequate rest between two legs of flights because of a similar shortage.

The DGCA has prescribed a limit of 1,000 flying hours annually so that the cabin crew is always fresh and alert for any emergency on a flight. Yet on January 15, 2010, AI Express chief of operations Captain Rajeev Bajpai wrote in a letter to all cabin crew members : "Of late, incidents of crew exceeding the flying hour limitations have come to light...While there has been shortage of crew at certain stations, the responsibility still lies with individual crew to inform operations of any likely violation."

But the shortage of staff meant that this letter had little or no impact, a fact admitted by Captain Bajpai in another letter to crew on May 6 — two weeks before Saturday's crash. "Since the earlier circulars on the subject (maintenance of log books) do not appear to have had the required impact, it has now been decided that all cabin crew must get their log book hours for the flight/series of flights authenticated by the commander of the flight... All crew are once again reminded to be aware of their FDTL (flight duty time limitation) limits as laid down by DGCA," Bajpai's most recent letter said.

The situation on the pilots' front is not too different. Airline sources said AI Express flies three to four-hour long flights on nearby international routes. "There's hardly any breathing period between the outbound and inbound journeys. In such a case, human psychology may make pilots — out of fatigue — go in for the time-consuming practice of go-arounds. The DGCA has ruled in favour of airline operators by reducing pilots' rest period and increasing duty time so that they can get more work for same or even less pay. It's time passenger safety gets precedence over commercial interests of airlines," said a senior pilot.

Speaking to the media in Mumbai, AI director Anup Srivastava did not comment on the possibility of any FDTL violation by the crew on IX 812, saying the probe would cover it.