Negotiating a tabletop runway, laid over the levelled surface of a hill, is tricky even in the best of weather. But the heavy downpour that enveloped the entire Kozhikode International Airport on Friday evening made landing extremely tough. Typical of tabletop accidents, the flight overshot the runway and dropped.
Since the aircraft did not catch fire on impact after falling 35 m into the valley down below, the toll did not cross 19. But in the aviation world, tabletop runway spelled disaster after the 2010 Mangaluru airport accident that killed 158 passengers.
On May 22, 2010, the Boeing 737 Air India Express flight from Dubai had overshot the runway’s threshold touchdown area, failed to stop and rolled down the steep hillside. Besides the Kozhikode and Mangaluru airports, India has a third tabletop runway, attached to the Lengpui airport in Mizoram.
