Mangalore tragedy: Air India crash pilot’s family speaks out

In their last exchange,on May 18,2010,over Skype — just after Glusica had reached Mangalore to join duty from home town Belgrade — Merima asked him about the gift. He told her he was yet to unpack his bags.

Four days later,Alexander,then preparing for a qualifying test for his pilot’s licence,called up Merima to tell her about the crash. “In disbelief,I rang my father’s mobile phone,which was ringing endlessly and he was not answering it…,” he said in an e-mail to the newspaper,the first time the family is talking to the Indian media.

What has prompted Merima and Alexander — the eldest of three children from Glusica’s first marriage — to break their silence is what followed their father’s death.

Six months after the crash,the Serbian media was awash with selective reports from India based on the findings of a panel that probed the incident. These blamed Glusica,led off by headlines such as “sleepy pilot” and “pilot nodded off”.

“I bought all the newspapers in which it was written that my father killed 158 people in a plane crash,” Merima says. “Has anyone thought about how the family and children will feel the moment they read that their father,husband,brother is marked as a killer?”

There were diplomatic protests over how findings of the report,which hadn’t been finalised,reached the media. Confirming this,a Civil Aviation Ministry official told The Indian Express: “It led to embarrassment for the Indian government… There are certain processes that still need to be followed,like including the comments of the manufacturer,country of manufacturer in the probe report as mandated by an international body.”

Questioning the way Glusica was being blamed,the family says: “The captain is the commander of the airplane,but is he the only one conducting the flight?”

In his last conversation with his father on May 20,Alexander recalls,Glusica had described Mangalore as the “toughest” base of Air India Express.

In fact,an Air India commander had told The Indian Express that repeated warnings from Air India Express’s flight training superior to Captain Glusica against hard landing could have led to the crash. “In such situations (like the Mangalore airport),hard landing is the only option,” the senior pilot said. “The runway is too short to try a smooth landing.”

The embittered Glusicas have not even claimed compensation,said a ministry official. They also rejected Air India’s offer to fly them to India to visit the crash site.

Air India officials say their communication with the family has been “very limited”,though they had made efforts to reach out to them. “We accompanied Capt Glusica’s coffin to Belgrade and arranged for a funeral with full honours,” said Air India’s QMS (Quality Management Service) head Harpreet A De Singh.

“We escorted our father to a route from where there is no return,” Merima says.

Still,she adds,stories of Indian warmth and hospitality told by her father reverberate in her mind. “Maybe,one day,we will all gather and visit his resting place.”