While the AIE flight crash at Kozhikode international airport triggered concerns over the safety of the tabletop runway, especially citing similar incidents earlier, an enquiry report into a 2017 incident at the same runway did not point out any fault with the runway despite it being wet.
Excessive rudder input by the pilot to bring the aircraft on the runway centre line was found to be the cause for the 2017 incident, according to DGCA’s enquiry report published last month.
It was on August 4, 2017, almost exactly three years ahead of the present crash on August 7, that a Spice Jet flight from Chennai to Kozhikode with 70 passengers and five crew veered off to the right after touchdown. There were no casualties.
