The Dubai-Mangalore Boeing 737-800 flight crashlanded in the Mangalore airport on 22nd May resulting in the tragic death of 158 persons. This airport has a tabletop runway and is referred to as a tricky airport by the NewYork Times.
In aviation terminology, this event is called "Runway excursion". Runway excursion is an incident involving only a single aircraft where it makes an inappropriate exit from the runway. This can happen because of pilot error, poor weather, emergency, or a fault with the aircraft. According to statistics compiled by IATA, there are 1.6 runway excursions per million flights in AsiaPacific region. (This compares with 0.36 in North America and 3.85 in Africa.) Nearly one in four air crashes occurs during landing.
Black Box and Voice Recorder are yet to be retrieved. Therefore views on what could have led to the crash continue to be conjectural. But one thing is certain. Aviation authorities need to pay more attention to safety of passengers.
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It's an awful accident, and certainly a tough airport. But then again, Air India has not been covering itself with glory of late:
http://rupabose.com/2010/05/24/air-india-and-unions/
It's not impossible that pilot error was a factor.
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