A Tabletop Airport is an airport located and built on top of a plateau or hilly surface, with one or both ends of the runway overlooking a drop.
The airports in the country which would count as “tabletops”, are namely Lengpui (Mizoram), Shimla and Kullu (Himachal Pradesh), Pakyong (Sikkim), Mangaluru (Karnataka), Kozhikode and Kannur (both Kerala).
There is no such term as a ‘tabletop airport’ in any International Civil Aviation \Organisation (ICAO) technical document.
The largest aircraft at Kozhikode (and at any tabletop airport so far) has been Air India’s 423-seater Boeing ‘jumbo’ 747, operating on the Kozhikode-Jeddah sector.
The safety concerns were first raised by following the Air India Express crash in Mangalore in May 2010 in which around 160 people were killed on board.
In its report on the crash, the court of Air Marshal B.N. Gokhale, former Vice-Chief of Air Staff, Indian Air Force (and its team of aviation expert assessors) made a series of recommendations in a 191-page document of October 2010. It pointed out following recommendations:
avoidance of the downward slope in the overshoot area particularly on ‘tabletop’ runways;
the need for a ground arresting system for aircraft — such a facility is maintained at almost all airfields of the Indian Air Force’;
a visual reference system to alert the pilot (while landing) of the remaining distance to be covered;
location of the ATC tower, approach and area radars;
the role of the Rescue and Fire Fighting service, aerodrome risk assessment and, finally,
recommendations for the DGCA.
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