Pilot error was to blame for a passenger plane crash in southern India in May that claimed 158 lives, an official investigation has heard. The Air India Express flight from Dubai to the city of Mangalore overshot the runway, plunged into a gorge and burst into flames. Eight people survived the crash. A Court of Inquiry in New Delhi heard that the aircraft's data recorders showed the captain was on the wrong flight path and did not correct course despite warnings from his co-pilot.
The last voice recording was the co-pilot saying "we don't have runway left". Most of the dead were migrant workers returning from the Gulf. The six-member court was set up to investigate the cause of India's first major air crash since 2000 and its worst aviation disaster since 1996 when two jets collided mid-air over New Delhi, killing nearly 350 people. * AFP
