President chopper fiasco: DGCA, IAF still scrapping over probe

Mumbai: The Indian Air Force and the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation are still scrapping over the nature of probe into the February 9 incident in which an IAF chopper and an Air India aircraft missed each other by barely 300 metres at the Mumbai airport. The chopper was part of President Pratibha Patil's convoy.
The IAF on Wednesday claimed to have had its way with the DGCA; a senior IAF official claimed that the probe into the near-miss would now be conducted jointly by the IAF and the DGCA. But a DGCA official said no decision had been taken on the matter; as far as he was aware, the DGCA was the authority conducting an inquiry into the near-collision.
The two agencies have not been seeing eye to eye over a probe which, agree both officials and aviation experts, is of utmost importance in ironing out several security glitches.
An Air India aircraft, taking off from the Mumbai airport, and an IAF chopper (part of Patil's convoy) landing at the same place missed each other by less than 300 metres (or 15 seconds). Security and aviation experts said the incident spoke poorly of the coordination - or its lack - between the IAF and the airport traffic control even where one of the movements involved the nation's first citizen. The IAF has, from the start, refused to accept the independent DGCA probe and has pressed for a joint inquiry into the matter.
"A joint inquiry has been initiated, which will still be headed by the DGCA. We shall wait for the report to be out before making more statements,'' an IAF spokesperson said, adding that the joint probe was instituted on Monday and would start after the DGCA issued a gazette notification. Both the IAF and the DGCA were yet to share their independent findings with each other, officials said.
19/02/09 Chinmayi Shalya/Times of India

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Categories: Air India Domestic Feb 2009, Airports Feb 2009, NACIL Feb 2009, Safety Feb 2009