Every year, pilots fly into weather they should have avoided because turning back felt like failure. From monsoon thunderstorms to thin summer air at high-altitude airfields, Indian conditions make the science of aeronautical decision-making a matter of life and death.
The pull of the destination
Aviation safety specialists have a name for one of the most dangerous tendencies in flying: plan continuation bias, sometimes called “get-there-itis”. Once committed to a plan, people tend to continue with it even as evidence mounts that it is no longer safe. Fuel has been loaded, passengers are waiting, schedules are tight, and the destination is only minutes away. Each small deterioration in conditions seems acceptable on its own. Together, they can lead an otherwise competent crew into a situation from which there is no good exit.
The antidote is aeronautical decision-making (ADM), a structured approach to recognising hazards, assessing risk and choosing a course of action before pressure narrows the options. A central principle is that a diversion or a go-around is a normal, professional outcome, not a failure.
Convective weather: the monsoon’s hidden hazards
India’s southwest monsoon brings towering cumulonimbus clouds, embedded thunderstorms and sudden heavy rain. Inside and beneath these storms, pilots can encounter severe turbulence, hail, lightning, icing at altitude and microbursts, intense downdraughts that spread out on striking the ground and can cause sudden, dangerous changes in airspeed during approach and take-off.
Weather radar and satellite imagery help, but convective cells can develop and move faster than forecasts anticipate, and storms embedded in widespread cloud may be hidden from view. Heavy rain also reduces visibility and leaves runways wet or contaminated, lengthening the distance needed to stop.
Lessons from Kozhikode
The crash of Air India Express flight IX-1344 at Kozhikode on 7 August 2020 remains a sobering case study. The Boeing 737 was landing on runway 10, a tabletop runway, in moderate thunderstorm and rain after an earlier approach to the opposite runway had been abandoned. According to the final report of India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, released in September 2021, the aircraft floated during an extended flare and touched down about 4,438 feet along the 8,858-foot runway, well beyond the touchdown zone, before overrunning the end and falling down the slope beyond.
The bureau identified the probable cause as the pilot flying’s non-adherence to standard operating procedures: he continued an unstabilised approach and landed beyond the touchdown zone despite a call to go around from the pilot monitoring, who did not take over the controls. The report also cited human factors, including anxiety about delays and possible overconfidence from previous landings at the airport in similar weather, as well as a runway end safety area not maintained to standard. Kozhikode illustrates how a decision to continue, rather than a single catastrophic failure, can turn a recoverable situation into a fatal one.
Thin air: the density-altitude trap
The second enemy is invisible. Density altitude is the altitude at which the aircraft “feels” it is flying, given the actual air density. Hot temperatures, high elevations and humidity all reduce air density, which reduces engine power, propeller efficiency and wing lift. The aircraft needs a longer take-off run, climbs more slowly and lands at a higher true airspeed.
India has some of the world’s most demanding conditions. Leh’s airport sits at about 3,256 metres, roughly 10,700 feet, where summer afternoons can push density altitude far higher. Even airports on the plains face very high density altitudes during pre-monsoon heat waves. Operators at such airfields typically schedule departures in the cooler early morning and restrict payloads accordingly. The thin air also affects people: in an unpressurised aircraft at high altitude, mild hypoxia can impair judgement subtly, at exactly the moment a pilot needs to make a sound decision about weather or performance. Pressurisation failures, as in the Colorado autoland incident of December 2025, show why oxygen discipline matters.
One engine or two?
The choice of aircraft shapes the margins. A modern single-engine turboprop is reliable and can climb well, but if its engine fails, the pilot must glide to a landing site, which may be scarce in mountainous terrain. A twin-engine turboprop offers redundancy, but at high density altitude and heavy weight its performance with one engine inoperative may be marginal: it may be unable to climb, or even hold altitude, after an engine failure. Pilots must therefore know the single-engine performance figures for the day’s conditions and plan departures and routes so that an engine failure does not leave them without options.
Dispatch reliability, the ability to depart on time with all required systems serviceable, also differs. Twins offer redundancy in flight but have more systems that can delay departure; airlines and charter operators weigh these trade-offs against route terrain and weather.
Building a culture that rewards turning back
Technology can help. Datalinked weather, onboard radar, synthetic vision and better forecasting from the India Meteorological Department all improve situational awareness. But the decisive factor remains human.
Effective operators set personal and company minimums in advance, such as limits for crosswind, visibility or thunderstorm proximity, so that decisions are not made under pressure. They brief alternates and diversion fuel before departure. Crew resource management training empowers the second pilot to call, and enforce, a go-around. And management must ensure that no pilot is penalised, formally or informally, for a safe diversion.
The best pilots are not those who always reach their destination. They are those who know, early and clearly, when not to.
