Extra kilos ground IA flight

But alarm bells were off when investigations found that the plane was overloaded. This came to light while questioning pilot S.K. Choudhary, who is believed to have ‘‘felt a certain heaviness’’ in the craft during take-off and landing.

It is learnt that when officials tallied the weight available in the computer records accessed by the pilot with those prepared manually on ground, the variation came to 981 kg. This was reported to the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) which has promptly ordered an inquiry into the incident with special focus on any correlation between the excess load and the tyre damage.

This weight variation has brought back ghastly memories of the crash at Aurangabad on April 26, 1993. Fifty-six persons were killed in the crash and the subsequent inquiry had identified overloading as one of the main factors for the crash. The aircraft, a Boeing 737, apparently did not get the needed thrust on take-off and consequently, one of its wheels hit a lorry on the highway near the Aurangabad airport. The plane crashed into a maze of high tension wires before landing on its belly in the nearby fields.

Confirming the excess load, Indian Airlines officials sought to downplay the incident saying the additional weight was not beyond the prescribed limits of an Airbus 320. However, they refused to divulge the exact weight of the aircraft on landing at Mumbai on grounds that it was subject to DGCA inquiry.

The DGCA too confirmed the excess weight factor and said an inquiry had been ordered. Official sources later said the variation in weight was close to 1 tonne which was way beyond acceptable limits and that Indian Airlines will have to come up with a convincing answer to explain this discrepancy.