Air India, Jet planes avert collision

A collision between two departing aircraft, which carried 239 passengers between them, was narrowly averted on Sunday morning at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport. The incident on the runway occurred just a day after the Directorate General of Civil Aviation passed instructions allowing round-the clock usage of the cross runways that were earlier being used for only six hours a day. Aviation experts say the near collision puts a serious question mark on safety assessment at the airport.

The incident occurred around 8 am, when Air India flight AI-348 was preparing to take off from the main runway, even as Jet Airways flight 9W615 was readying for the same from the airport’s secondary runway. The planes came within seconds of a possible collision because the airport’s runways intersect one another and, according to sources, either a take-off clearance was given to both planes simultaneously or one of the pilots misunderstood the Air Traffic Control’s (ATC) instructions.

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