New Delhi: Wings of an Akasa aircraft was about to take-off and a taxiing SpiceJet aircraft collided at the Delhi airport on Thursday. Initial reports suggested that SpiceJet pilots executed a turn without wing walker clearance from the Air Traffic Control (ATC) officer. The Directorate General of Civil aviation (DGCA) has ordered that the pilots of the SpiceJet aircraft and the ATC officer concerned be taken off duty till an inquiry is conducted.
This has brought similar incidents in the past two months into the spotlight, highlighting concerns about aviation safety standards at airports.
A major disaster was averted at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport on February 3 after the wing tips of two aircraft were involved in a ground collision. In this case, it was an Air India flight pushing back for its departure to Coimbatore and an IndiGo flight taxiing after arriving from Hyderabad. Earlier this month, an IndiGo aircraft was hit by an unmanned catering truck at Kolkata airport.
These incidents have raised questions about safety standards at Indian airports, highlighting the need for immediate attention.
A Parliamentary Standing Committee report on review of safety in civil aviation tabled in 2025 said that AIRPROX (aircraft proximity) rates exceeded the acceptable benchmark, further reinforcing the conclusion that systemic issues related to airspace management, standard operating procedures, and pilot-controller communication are not being adequately resolved by the DGCA. The aviation regulator has set up an Occurrence Review Board (ORB) to look into such incidents.
Runway incursions by aircraft were recorded at a rate of 14.12 per million movements, significantly exceeding the established target of 9.78 in 2024. Similarly, incursions attributed to a loss of situational awareness stood at 5.91 per million movements, against a target of 4.54. These are high-consequence events that pose a direct risk of collision on the ground.
The persistence of high runway incursion and AIRPROX rates indicates that the mitigation and prevention phases of the safety management cycle are broken.
17/04/2026 Richa Sharma/Business Today
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