Monday, September 07, 2009

Year of flying dangerously

Since January, the Mumbai airport has survived six scares, most of them involving a narrowly missed collision between aircraft.
On February 9, Delhi-bound Air India flight IC866 with 155 passengers on board nearly missed a collision with an Indian Air Force (IAF) chopper that was part of the Presidential troupe carrying President Pratibha Patil. A DGCA investigation later found that the distance between the chopper and the aircraft was just 30-40 metres before the latter aborted takeoff and exited the runway.
On June 1, Air India’s Shanghai-bound flight AI348 with 120 passengers and Jet Airways’ Kolkata-bound flight 9W6150 with 119 passengers nearly took off simultaneously from separate runways. Both aircraft aborted take-off just in the nick of time.
On June 11, Kingfisher flight IT 304 from Delhi descended to 600 feet, much lower than the permissible limit. The aircraft was at least three miles away from the airport. The pilot later said that the aircraft’s flight movement guidance system had failed.
On August 23, two private aircraft took off from the same runway. Later it was found out that the ATC had given clearance to just one of the planes.
On August 26, a Bangalore bound Air India flight with 87 passengers returned to the Mumbai airport after being airborne for 35 minutes. A technical problem was given as the reason for its return.
On September 4, Riyadh-bound Air India flight AI 829 had to abort takeoff after the first engine of its left wing caught fire.
07/09/09 Shashank Shekhar/Indian Express
To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

0 comments:

Post a Comment