Thousands of flyers have had a close shave in the Indian skies where 141 air misses happened in the past three years, going by data shared by civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri in the Lok Sabha.
A majority of these incidents happened within the three major flight information regions of Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai. The incidents were the highest in 2018 when 47 air misses were reported. In 2016, 32 air misses were registered and in 2017, 28. This year, till November 1, there were 35 such incidents.
Mumbai flight information region topped the list with 38 incidents, followed by Delhi with 37 and Chennai 32. Kolkata saw 17 incidents when planes came too close for safety. To ensure safety, flights are separated horizontally and vertically. When the prescribed separation is breached, it is considered an air miss.
An AAI official said many of these incidents were not "very serious", but could have been avoided. "Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai flight information regions handle more than 2,000 flights with a considerable number of domestic movements and overflying flights. This puts pressure on air traffic controllers. The number of incidents can be considered as far less for the kind of flight traffic handled over the airspace," he said.
Most incidents took place because of poor coordination between air traffic controllers and pilots, inadequate surveillance by controllers and pilots deviating from their flight path without permission. There were also instances when commands of the air traffic controllers were either not understood or not read back by pilots. Similar call signs too created confusion, which has made DGCA to direct airlines not to use similar call signs.
03/12/19 V Ayyappan/Times of India
To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline
A majority of these incidents happened within the three major flight information regions of Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai. The incidents were the highest in 2018 when 47 air misses were reported. In 2016, 32 air misses were registered and in 2017, 28. This year, till November 1, there were 35 such incidents.
Mumbai flight information region topped the list with 38 incidents, followed by Delhi with 37 and Chennai 32. Kolkata saw 17 incidents when planes came too close for safety. To ensure safety, flights are separated horizontally and vertically. When the prescribed separation is breached, it is considered an air miss.
An AAI official said many of these incidents were not "very serious", but could have been avoided. "Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai flight information regions handle more than 2,000 flights with a considerable number of domestic movements and overflying flights. This puts pressure on air traffic controllers. The number of incidents can be considered as far less for the kind of flight traffic handled over the airspace," he said.
Most incidents took place because of poor coordination between air traffic controllers and pilots, inadequate surveillance by controllers and pilots deviating from their flight path without permission. There were also instances when commands of the air traffic controllers were either not understood or not read back by pilots. Similar call signs too created confusion, which has made DGCA to direct airlines not to use similar call signs.
03/12/19 V Ayyappan/Times of India
0 comments:
Post a Comment