An Air India flight with faulty equipment landed at Lengpui airport, which has a table-top runway, on Sunday after failing to do so for past three days because of inclement weather.
The plane from Kolkata landed in spite of the malfunctioning VOR (very high frequency omni-directional range) equipment, UK Ghosh, senior manager, Airports Authority of India, said.
This comes days after an Air India Express plane crashed at Mangalore’s Bajpe airport, killing 158 people. The Mangalore airport, like Lengpui, has a table-top runway, which creates an optical illusion that requires a very precise approach from the pilot. The 2,500-metre runway of the Lengpui airport also has streams running underneath.
The IC-211 landed here at 4 pm in good weather.
VOR is a system of navigational beacons positioned at various locations at the airport. Each beacon broadcasts a signal at a particular frequency, picked up by a navigation receiver in the aircraft cockpit.
Ghosh said the VOR and the one on standby suddenly stopped working on Sunday and the flight, which was supposed
{{/usCountry}}Ghosh said the VOR and the one on standby suddenly stopped working on Sunday and the flight, which was supposed
{{/usCountry}}to land at 1.40 pm, was diverted to Imphal as the pilot could not land with visual and manual aid.