ATC saves aircraft from crashing into Thane creek

Mumbai: Timely intervention by the Mumbai Air Traffic Control (ATC) prevented a major tragedy on Tuesday morning. A Delhi-Mumbai flight of Kingfisher descended lower than the permissible limit even when it was miles away from the airport.
The Airbus 321 was to land at Mumbai airport at 10.30am. At 10.35am the aircraft was on the final approach when the ILS (Instrument Landing System) radar showed that the plane had descended to a lower height. "The plane had crossed Turbhe hills and was seven miles away from the runway," a source from Kingfisher Airline said. "The ATC radar controller noticed the plane at 600 feet above the Thane creek."
Ideally a plane should be at more than 1700 feet when it is couple of miles away from the airport. "The plane is normally at 600 feet when it is 1.5 miles away from the runway," the source said.
The plane was scheduled to land at runway 27. "The ATC official asked the pilot to pull up the aircraft and take it to a safe height, which he did. But it could have been a disaster had he failed to pull up the plane. It could have crashed before the runway." The flight IT 304 had over 150 passengers on board.
Following ATC instructions, the pilot pulled up the plane and did a go around and landed at Mumbai airport at 11.02am. "The pilot told us that plane's flight movement guidance system (FMGC) had failed," a DGCA official said.
11/06/09 Naveeta Singh/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Airports Jun 2009, Kingfisher Jun 2009, Safety Jun 2009