Kozhikode plane crash: No question over competence of pilots, says Puri

The commander of the aircraft Deepak Sathe, a fighter pilot with Indian Air Force had 10,000 hours of flying experience on the Boeing 737 aircraft

Pilots operating the Air India Express aircraft which crashed at the Kozhikode airport on Friday were very experienced, said civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri.

The captain of the aircraft Deepak Sathe, a fighter pilot with Indian Air Force had 10,000 hours of flying experience on the Boeing 737 aircraft. Out of that he flew 6,662 hours as commander.

Sathe had landed on the challenging air field of Calicut 27 times including more than 10 times this year itself, executives of the airline said.

The co-pilot, Akhilesh Kumar who was 32 years old also had experience of 1,728 hours of