Mangalore Air crash: Environmentalists Seek JPC Probe
Pics by Dayananda Kukkaje
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore (SB)

Mangalore, Jun 6: The members of the Environment Support Group (ESG), a non-governmental organisation, and the district Dalit Sangharsh Samiti, have demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the May 22 Air India Express crash that killed 158 people.

Leo F Saldanha, convenor of the ESG told presspersons here on Saturday June 5 that the accident was the result of violation of norms and standards that needs to be followed while constructiong a runway. A JPC inquiry will point out at the violations and help set right the problems faced by the runway. A runway should be 300 metres in width and the one at te airport here is not more than 200 metres, he alleged.

Saldanha said that we are in the process of filing a criminal case against the Airport Authority of India, Director General of Civil Aviation and the Ministry of Civil Aviation for the lapses which resulted in May 22 air crash. The present risky table-top runway at the Mangalore Airport was selected in late 1980s, despite the availability of an alternative site, he said.

Saldanha displayed a Revenue map of the then Bajpe area, showing the two proposed airstrips. “The land at the alternative site was undulating but not surrounded by deep valleys like at the present site,” he said. Our public interest litigation (PIL) filed against the construction of second runway was dismissed by the High Court in 1997 and Supreme Court upheld the HC verdict in 2002. In the HC, the PIL was rejected with the ruling premature to decide.

Pointing to the present proposal to extend the runway, he said there was no room for expansion since the strip was at the top of a hill.

Arthur J Pereira, who was in the forefront of opposing the second runway said that they had proposed an alternative runway north of the airport. The proposal was of 12,000 feet runway and it was from north east to south west, Pacchal to Sunkadakatte, he said. He alleged that vested interests fearing loss of land favoured Centre's proposal, rejecting the above said propsal. 

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