Trouble in skies again: two planes fly too close for comfort

In a week full of close shaves for various flights in the Indian skies,the Air Traffic Controller of Kolkata got a panic alarm on Wednesday evening from the pilot of a Jet Airways flight that was on its way to Kolkata from Chennai.

In a week full of close shaves for various flights in the Indian skies,the Air Traffic Controller (ATC) of Kolkata got a panic alarm on Wednesday evening from the pilot of a Jet Airways flight that was on its way to Kolkata from Chennai.

The incident occurred around 5 pm on Wednesday evening when the flight collision alarm of the plane went off. The flight was then descending at 33,000 feet. Around the same time,a Spice Jet flight,bound to Bangalore was told to ascend by the ATC to 32,000 feet at about 100 nautical miles from Kolkata. The distance between the two flights was about a 1,000 feet when the flight collision alarm went off.

On Thursday,ATC officials denied the possibility of a collision between the two aircraft saying they maintained the minimum required vertical separation of 1,000 feet. They said that the alarm went off because the Jet Airways flight descended to 33,000 feet at a much faster speed than required.

The DGCA is looking into the matter,they added.

Earlier,in the last week of January,a major disaster was averted after seven flights approaching Kolkata had lost contact with the ATC for over half an hour. This incident is already being probed by the DGCA. Three days ago,a potential mid-air disaster was averted when an Air India Airbus on a flight from Dibrugarh to Kolkata with 43 passengers on board and an IAF plane came dangerously close to each other over Jorhat airspace,a day after a civilian plane narrowly averted collision with a helicopter entourage carrying President Pratibha Patil in Mumbai.

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