According to air traffic controllers, there are three landing approaches for runway 10 and depending on the course the pilot of a flight decides to take, landing clearance to all flights are given at a height between 2,200 and 2,500 feet above mean sea level. The pilot then decides on the descent of the aircraft and the plane's path is monitored by the controllers.

The AN-32, unfortunately, never made it to the runway. According to the air traffic controllers, just after the aircraft was given landing clearance, it went missing on the radar. The controller on duty apparently tried to make radio contact with the pilot of the aircraft through all available frequencies. Information about the crash was given to the ATC by another aircraft that had seen the debris of the AN-32.

``According to the initial information, the ATC lost contact with the aircraft at around 8.17 a.m.,'' says V. Sridhar, airport director. ``The crash obviously happened minutes after that. However, since all records have been sealed, there is no further information available''.

Apparently, after radio contact was lost with the AN-32, the ATC control room sent a jeep to runway 10 to check if the flight had already landed. The aircraft had crash landed by then. The wreckage on the site of the crash indicates that the aircraft was flying very low -- low enough to hit an embankment barely six inches tall.

The spokesperson of the Air Traffic Controller's Guild (ATCO) has said that the runway the aircraft was scheduled to land on is the secondary runway. The CAT II ILS recently installed on the main runway is reportedly not functioning properly and hence the secondary runway was frequently used.

Immediately after the information about the crash was received, the airport was closed for over an hour. Between 8.50 a.m. and 10.20 a.m. there were no landings or take-offs from the airport. ``Following the crash, all our fire tenders were rushed to the spot,'' explains Sridhar. ``Our operational procedures specify that there has to be at least one stand-by fire tender at the airport when the runway is in use''.

Therefore, it was only after the fire at the crash site had been doused and the fire tenders had refilled their tanks, that operations at the airport were re-started. However, since no information was made available to the passengers about the crash, there was confusion at the terminals for a while. The announcement system at the airport only informed passengers about flights that were being diverted or delayed.

Meanwhile, Airline officials checked the site themselves to see whether the movement of their aircrafts would be affected in any way. Naono Takakki of All Nippon Airways was inspecting the spot and said: ``We are just checking to see if the crash will affect operations at the airport in any manner. But it looks like landings and take-offs will be okay''.