Day after snag, Air Traffic Control told to exercise caution

Chandigarh: A day after TOI reported about the goof-up at Chandigarh airport, which lead to near collision between a Jet Airways and Kingfisher plane, the Airport Authority of India swung into action and asked Air Traffic Control here, manned by the Air Force, not to allow in future more than two aircraft at any one point of time.
The airport, which has six flights operated by four airlines taking off and landing every day, saw the area cramped up by three flights on Tuesday- Jet, Kingfisher and Air India - leading to large scare and enormous confusion. Adding to this was a fourth flight, that of the Indian and English cricket teams, which landed even as the mess was being sorted out, forcing the players and officials to stay inside the chartered plane for nearly 45 minutes.
Confirming the directions, airport director Sunil Dutt said on Wednesday that the situation arose when a delayed Kingfisher flight landed late and then parked wrongly. He added that the decision may create trouble for his Delhi counterpart but security of passengers and flights here was important.
A huge mishap had been averted on Tuesday when at 2.30 pm a Jet Airways flight came within 15 feet of smashing into a Kingfisher plane. The Jet pilot had to apply emergency breaks and tractors were called in to pull out the aircraft.
The ATC had blamed the civil aviation wing for the whole incident and maintained there was no lapse on their part. But an AAI letter states otherwise. Answering a query on why a chartered flight was allowed to land when there was already congestion, AAI officials said the plane carrying the cricketers had fuel for only 20 minutes and "if we had not cleared the way, they would have been forced to go back to Delhi".
Later in the day, a Kingfisher Airlines spokesperson called up to clear their part of the story and said the situation arose because a third aircraft had been allowed to land despite shortage of space.
18/12/08 Anilesh S Mahajan/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Dec 2008, Kingfisher Dec 2008, NACIL Dec 2008, Safety Dec 2008