Flight from Mumbai gets hijack scare

A faulty hijack signal sparked alarms at the Kolkata, Mumbai and Nagpur airports late on Friday night. While air traffic controllers (ATCs) claim that it was Jet Airways’ Flight 9W102 from Mumbai to Kolkata that issued the signal, the airline claims its pilot never sent it and blames a malfunction at the ATC end instead.
Confirming the incident, Airports Authority of India executive director (Western Region) SRR Rao told Hindustan Times that a probe has been launched into the matter.
The flight, carrying 121 passengers and nine crew, left Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport just after 7 pm. Cruising towards its destination, it crossed into Nagpur ATC jurisdiction at 7.45 pm. The flight was to be handed over to Kolkata ATC at 9 pm, but 10 minutes before that the Nagpur ATC system collapsed and they lost touch with the flight.
Since a flight has to be in constant communication with air traffic controls along its route, Nagpur ATC started receiving the backlog signals from the aircraft once its system resumed functioning. As part of the flight’s backlog was a hijack alert, which flashed for about eight seconds. A startled Nagpur ATC alerted Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata airports and also contacted the pilot who laid their fears to rest.
10/03/07 Aditya Ghosh/Hindustan Times

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Categories: Airports Mar 2007, Jet Airways Mar 2007, Safety Mar 2007