PANAJI
The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has said that human error and the lack of adequate infrastructure at Goa’s Manohar International Airport led to the aborted take-off of an Air India flight to Hyderabad last December, which according to them was a “serious incident”. AAIB released its 16-page final report last week pertaining to the incident.
The investigating authority noted that MIA airport did not have an Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System (A-SMGCS), at the time of the incident, which could have improved crew awareness.
Interestingly, according to the sources, MIA installed A-SMGCS, in January, earlier this year, a month after the incident took place -- one of the key recommendations made by AAIB in its report -- the copy of which is with The Goan.
The incident involving Air India flight AIC 2592, carrying 151 passengers and 7 crew members, occurred on the night of December 5, 2024. The fight was stopped mid-roll just as it was accelerating for take-off. The flight had mistakenly entered Taxiway ‘A’ instead of Taxiway ‘A5’, which had been assigned for take-off on Runway 28.
The aircraft was immediately ordered to abort take-off, and the pilots complied.
Specifying the probable causes for the incident, the probe report said there was a "Situational Awareness Deficit" on the part of crew. The take-off clearance given by the ATC likely caused the crew's cognitive focus to shift entirely towards the take-off.
"This shift may have diminished their situational awareness, resulting in expectation bias or cognitive overload, which prevented them from recognising the visual cues indicating they were at the taxiway intersection instead of the runway intersection," the report noted.
The flight crew did not fully comply with the ATC’s taxi instructions and failed to enter Taxiway A5 before aligning the aircraft for take-off. “Had the crew followed the correct instructions and entered TWY A5 before turning for line-up, the incident could have been avoided,” the report stated.
AAIB also said that the airport did not have an Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System (A-SMGCS), which could have improved crew awareness.
“The co-pilot was trying to restore the Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) display to ON mode to initiate the LINE-UP checklist. During this time, he failed to verify the departure runway while the flying pilot was incorrectly lining up on Taxiway A,” the report said.
AAIB has recommended that Air India and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) should coordinate with IT teams to prevent EFB systems from entering sleep mode during critical operations and airline operators should encourage cockpit crews to cross-check their aircraft's position using the Aircraft Moving Map alongside primary navigation tools before take-off.
