Close shave for 3 jets at Chennai airport

Chennai: Three aircraft came too close for comfort at Chennai airport on Saturday morning, forcing a Jet Airways flight to abort take-off at the last minute.
The pilot of the Jet Airways flight, which was moving to take-off on runway 25 at 8.40am with 120 passengers, saw an Indigo aircraft had not vacated the farther end of the runway, and stopped. Meanwhile, an Air India flight from Delhi was on its way to land. Seeing that the Jet flight was still on the runway, the Air India plane which was descending, did a 'go around', pulling up again. With the Air India plane hovering in the vicinity, the air traffic control asked the Jet pilot to reject take-off. The Air India flight landed 22 minutes later, at 9.02am.
"A miscalculation on the part of the ATC in measuring the distance between the flights and the time caused the problem," an aviation official said. An ATC source said such instances happen, but often go unreported. "There was a possibility of a collision if the Jet aircraft was allowed to take off as the Air India flight, carrying 160 passengers, was above the airport. It could also have proved tough for the Jet flight to maintain a lower height immediately after take-off," said a pilot who was present at the airport.
A minimum distance of three miles (5 km) is to be maintained between two aircraft in motion near Indian airports and this is often kept at 5 to 10 miles in Chennai.
25/09/11 Arun Janardhanan/Times of India

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: airports Sep 2011, Indigo Airlines Sep 2011, Jet Airways Sep 2011, Kingfisher Sep 2011, Safety Sep 2011