In mid-air, plane’s key panel goes blank

This is an emergency. I am not getting the proper data. None of the navigational panels are working properly...
The SOS to the Calcutta air traffic control (ATC) was from the Hyderabad-bound SpiceJet flight SG 527 minutes after take-off on June 6. There were 132 passengers on board.
In what was termed by airport officials and pilots as an “extremely rare and dangerous situation”, the aircraft’s essential gadgets measuring height and speed and fixing direction were malfunctioning. A disaster was averted by the pilot’s SOS to the airport and then the surveillance radar that navigated the craft back to safety.
The Boeing 737-800 series left Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport at 2.47pm. Once airborne, the control of an aircraft is handed over to the surveillance radar from the ATC tower but the officer in the control tower keeps in touch with the pilot.
“The pilot was not responding to our calls. We were very worried,” recounted an official of the directorate-general of civil aviation (DGCA)’s air safety wing.
Then, the pilot’s voice reached ATC officers. “He sounded really nervous,” the official added.
And with good reason. The pilot told the control tower that the altimeter, the heading and the speed control system were not displaying the vital information.
“The craft was then flying at an approximate height of 3,000 feet above ground level and steadily gaining height.” an official explained.
The pilot told the control tower that he needed to return to Calcutta airport at once. “A full emergency was declared at the airport; we had never faced such a situation,” an ATC official admitted.
SG 527 was then completely guided back to the runway by the surveillance radar. The pilot was first told to turn in a particular direction, then asked to lower height and decrease speed as directed by the radar. The aircraft landed just after 3pm, amidst all emergency arrangements.
12/06/07 Sanjay Mandal/The Telegraph

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Categories: Airports Jun 2007, Safety Jun 2007, SpiceJet Jun 2007