Tuesday, September 18, 2018

How Air India pilots & ATC saved day on this 9/11

New Delhi: We’re really, you know, stuck and there’s no fuel.” Air India’s senior commander Rustom Palia told New York JFK Airport’s air traffic control (ATC) with a steely voice on final approach to land there on September 11. Palia and Captain Sushant Singh, second-in-command, were flying a Boeing 777 as AI 101 Delhi-JFK nonstop when the aircraft — with 370 passengers — on final approach suffered a string of multiple instrument failures.

The instrument landing system (ILS) failed at the last minute due to which Captains Palia and Singh had to abort touching down at JFK and then they spent close to one half an hour in air trying to figure out — in coordination with JFK ATC — an airport in NYC or a nearby city with good visibility.

Running low on fuel, they quickly needed a decent chance of sighting a runway early enough to make a visual approach due to the failed ILS. The transcript of conversation between the cockpit of AI 101 and JFK ATC shows how the two captains showed nerves of steel and how a JFK controller ensured the plane lands safely in severe adversity. AI 101 was behind an Embraer in landing sequence for JFK when the “master caution sound” went off in the cockpit. The plane then did a go-around and was expecting to return to land at JFK in second attempt. Then the system failure started extending to other instruments as well.
18/09/18 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India
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