Two IndiGo aircraft came close to colliding with each other mid-air while taking off from Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) earlier this month. The incident occurred on January 7, when IndiGo flights 6E 455 departing for Kolkata and 6E 246 for Bhubaneswar were given permission to depart at the same time.
The KIA has two runways _ a north runway and a south runway. The runways are not used for simultaneous departures as flights taking off from the same distance can intersect with each other. In other words, parallel runway operations are not feasible from the airport.
“On the morning of the incident, the north runway was being used for departures and the south runway for arrivals. Later, the shift in-charge decided to close the south runway but failed to inform the air traffic controller of the south tower,” a senior official of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said.
As a result, the two flights were given permission for take-off at the same time from the converging runways. This resulted in a situation where the aircraft moving in the same direction were about to collide with each other. A radar controller saw this and immediately intervened to alert the aircraft.
The incident raises serious questions on lapses by air traffic controllers that led to the incident as well as failure on the part of both the Airports Authority of India and the airline to report it to the DGCA. “None of the entities involved shared the information. It was during our surveillance that we discovered that this had happened,” the DGCA source said.
The DGCA is investigating the matter and said that it would take the strictest action against those responsible for the incident.
IndiGo declined to comment about the incident.
