Aircraft departed runway 27 at Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (VABB) at 02:40 UTC (08:10 local time) on Wednesday, 28th January 2026, en route to Baramati Airport. Baramati airport is a small regional airport located about 54 nautical miles from Pune and serves the city of Baramati, offering GA aviation, charter flights, and private aircraft, as well as government rather than commercial flights. Baramati Airport has no navigational approach facilities and pilots fly the aircraft by visual reference. The airport is uncontrolled, and pilots are advised by the ATSU to take off or land at their discretion; no ATC clearances are issued.
Weather
There are no weather recording facilities, and the nearest airport is a significant distance away, so any METAR data would be of very limited value, although the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), India, reported the visibility at Baramati was 3000m.
Flight
The crew called Baramati after being released from Pune Approach and were advised to descend in visual meteorological conditions (VMC) at their discretion. The crew asked for the wind and visibility, and were told the winds were calm, visibility was 3000 metres. The crew reported final approach to runway 11 but could not see the runway in time to land safely, so they executed a go-around and circled before attempting a second approach. During this second approach, they were asked whether they could see the runway; initially, they responded that they could not, but a few seconds later, they advised that they could. The crew was advised they could land at their discretion, but this was not read back, and flames were sighted at the runway threshold. The aircraft ended up on the left-hand side of runway 11 abeam the threshold.
The land drops away immediately prior to the threshold of runway 11.
Commercial operation into and out of an airfield under VFR
Technical Issues
It is very possible that the aircraft suffered a technical issue on the second final approach which is something the accident investigators will, no doubt, focus on.
Human Factors
There are a number of historic studies that focus on human performance during an unexpected go-around. A go-around is a standard aviation procedure executed when an approach is unsatisfactory, perhaps due to ATC, an unstable or incorrectly configured aircraft or insufficient runway visibility to assure a safe landing.
The procedure is practiced, but during a practice go-around, the pilot is expecting to execute a go-around procedure. In operational flying a go-around is not so expected and leads to human factors. Studies have shown that the human errors during the go-aound tend to be of errors of judgment and errors caused due to a temporary loss of situational awareness. Another factor that pilots are trained in is more of a cognitive nature specifically continuation bias. Continuation bias is the unconscious cognitive bias to continue with the original plan despite changing and challenging conditions.
All pilots are training in Human Performance to raise and maintain an understanding of the changes in human performance when flying.
