Obstruction Survey to be held at Mangalore Airport

Court Chair Air Marshal (Retd) B N Gokhale instructed Vasudeva to submit the report to court before September 30.

The instruction comes in the backdrop of observations made by the deposers in the last two days before the court of inquiry. They include bird menace in the airport premises, lack of hospital nearby, narrow roads to the valley, a water tank near the airport and thick vegetation in the valley among other issues.

Vasudeva told the Court that the Obstruction Survey was conducted in 2006 when the new runway was commissioned and it is valid till 2011. However, the Court instructed Vasudeva to conduct another survey.

The Court also observed that the runway width was inadequate at a small stretch between 1,100 metre and 1,600 metre in the 2,570-metre runway. However, Vasudeva informed the court that plans are on the anvil to construct a parallel runway that will take care of the basic requirement.

Chemical analysis

The doctors who performed post mortem on Pilot Capt Z Glusica and Co-Pilot H S Ahluwalia told the Court of Inquiry that they are yet to receive the Chemical Analysis Report from the Regional Forensic Centre in Bangalore.

Co-Pilot H S Ahluwalia’s body was first mistaken to be that of a woman (as he had long hair).  Dr Ritesh G Menezes, an Associate Professor at Department of Forensic Medicine at KMC (who performed the post mortem of pilot), said that the body was finally identified as he had beard too and also with the help of a locket he was wearing.

Survivors depose

Out of the eight survivors, three survivors Ummer Farooq M, Pradeep G K and Abdulla Puttur Ismail deposed before the Court on Wednesday. All of them said that they saw an opening near their seat and they jumped out presuming that there  was more danger if they remain inside.

Air Marshal B N Gokhale congratulated the trio on their presence of mind. On the other hand, the trio after jumping out of the aircraft jumped away from the aircraft presuming that there is more danger. And in deed there was. As they reached quite a few distance, they heard another explosion.

Ummer said that he walked upto the railway track and asked a motorcyclist to drop him till the main road from where he took an autorickshaw and went to A J Hospital.