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At least 158 people are dead in the city of Mangalore in the Southern state of Karnataka, India, after a plane crash early Saturday. The plane landed at the airport safely but overshot the runway.
The Air Indian Express, a Boeing 737-800, carrying 166 passengers and crew, landed on a “table top” runway, with a valley at the end, at Bajpe Airport. The airport, which was built in 2006, is difficult to land at and requires additional training according to experts.
A table top landing creates an optical illusion for the pilot as the visual reference changes during the approach, an unnamed international airline pilot explained in The Hindu. It “requires the pilot to guard against taking the aircraft either too high or low on the approach,” he said.
Zlatko Glusica, captain of the airplane who died in the crash with the rest of the crew, overshot his landing on the 2.6 kilometer long runway and couldn’t stop before he ran out of room. The plane plunged down 500 meters into a ravine, broke in two, and caught on fire.
