Lives of over 400 passengers were in danger as two aircrafts — Jet Airways and GoAir came on the same course and were just 100 feet away from each other over Mumbai airspace.
The incident took place in June. A probe conducted by aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) found that Air Traffic Controller had ‘mistakenly’ asked the GoAir pilot to descend to the level where Jet Airways was flying.
The controller, however, immediately realised the mistake and issued Resolution Advisory (RA) to both the pilots within seconds, avoiding the collision. An RA is given when ATC feels that risk of collision has reached within 25 seconds and pilot has to give priority to RA and act within six seconds.
DGCA has also pulled up GoAir pilot for descending on ATC’s instruction despite being asked to hold twice due to heavy traffic. DGCA official said pilot should have cross-checked before descending. The probe has suggested corrective training for both the controller and pilot to avoid such incident in future.
On June 9, separation between the GoAir flight (Delhi-Pune) and Jet Airways flight (Hyderabad-Mumbai) was reduced to 2.8 nautical miles (lateral separation) against 10NM and 100 feet (vertical separation) against prescribed 1,000 feet. Hindustan Times has a copy of the report.
Contacted, both GoAir and Jet Airways refused to comment on the matter.