Most of the civil airports in the country are located very close to cities, with an urban profusion of residential buildings, warehouses, hotels, eateries, butcheries, and waste dumping grounds. Birds, sometimes large ones like vultures and eagles, come looking for food near these locations. Offal and waste attract birds. They are a potential hazard to the aviation industry, causing loss of lives and disruption to flight schedules.

At many locations, there are tall buildings bearing hoardings, which interfere with the mandatory second segment climb gradient of 3 per cent for four-engine aeroplanes and also the Instrument Landing Systems, where the descent path is a minimum of 3 degrees. In the first segment, the aircraft thrust and climb gradient are factored in to clear any obstacle at the periphery of the take-off area. The second segment refers to the climb after the landing gear is retracted, and the flight is usually 400 feet above ground level. Non-compliance of the second segment climb penalises the load of the flight.

On every runway there is an undershoot area and an overshoot area. Undershoot is in case the aircraft is coming in very low to land and the area needs to be clear of obstacles. For the AI 171 there was practically no overshoot area. This is a very clear violation of civil aviation rules and laws governing the Civil Aviation Act.

For instance, in Mumbai, on the right side of Runway 27, there are........

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