Neelam Mathews
Sept 30, 2012
Kingfisher Airlines seems to be getting in the news for
all the wrong reasons. Lady luck seems to be looking the other way as far as
the ailing carrier is concerned. We just
broke the story on the frustrated engineers without salaries, and now we hear
on Sept 27, a tractor rammed into the carrier’s ATR “making a big hole” into it
at Mumbai International Airport. So, now, we’re told, the plane count is down to
8, including 3 ATRs.
While the airports really need to look at modernised equipment for ground handling and the tractor ramming into KFA may not have been the carrier's fault, memory is fresh still of earlier mishaps including
the one in Nov 2009 when KFAs VT-KAC ATR-72 (Bhavnagar
-Mumbai) skidded off the runway when landing. All the passenger
safely deplaned after the accident. “The accident occurred due to unstabilized
approach and decision of crew not to carry out a ‘Go-around’,” said the DGCA
report.
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Credit-jagdishbhawsar |
This brings us to the experience the brave KFA engineers have developed in recovering aircraft real fast despite no funds for spares through cannibalizing parts. As one engineer tells Aerospace Diary: “Yeh to chota mota kaam hai,( this is work that can be done in a jiffy, we are adept at it).
”It is time to consider an award for the silent brigade of Kingfisher that keeps
its aircraft flying.?
Perhaps, Mr Mallya could start with giving them their 7-month old salaries?
Remember This?