At Delhi Airport, IndiGo Flight Touched Down, Saw Air India Plane On Runway, Took Off

Asia

At the Delhi airport passengers on board an IndiGo flight had a scare when the aircraft zoomed back up after touching down. The incident took place around noon when visibility was clear and even an Air India plane had to cancel take-off to avoid coming close to the IndiGo aircraft.

Aviation watchdog sources said that both the pilots followed Standard Operating Procedure.

The incident took place not long before Prime Minister Narendra Modi went to the airport to receive his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina, who arrived on a four-day visit.

Air India's Delhi-Goa flight AI 156 was about to take off at 11.15 am when the Air Traffic Control or ATC asked the pilot to stop and come back to bay, sources say.

The IndiGo flight, the sources add, was cleared to land but when it touched down, it saw the Air India plane at the converging point of runways and took off again, following procedure but probably baffling its passengers.

The Air India pilot, given the go-ahead to fly almost at the same time, saw the IndiGo flight and told the ATC that it was aborting take-off. The Air India aircraft, with 122 on board, finally took off at 12.50 pm. The IndiGo plane landed on the runway 27 minutes after what in aviation parlance is called a near-miss.

A senior DGCA source said that runway 27-28 are converging runways. On which one flight is allowed to land and go around and other is kept ready cleared for take-off. The IndiGo flight touched down and saw the Air India aircraft ready for take-off and as a standard procedure took off.

"In such circumstances the two pilots don't do the same thing. Since IndiGo touched down at 27 and seeing Air India aircraft on 28 ready for take-off it aborted plans to completing the landing. Since IndiGo had announced it was taking off, the Air India pilot informed the ATC that it was cancelling its departure," said a senior source.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation said in a statement: "There was no safety issue, no collision issue and no infringement. Therefore, nowhere was safety compromised."

Source: ndtv