Even as a Mumbai-bound Air India flight escaped a mishap in New Jersy on Sunday, after it was hit by a bird, air passengers in India have been lucky almost 78 times over the past three-and-a-half years.
Records accessed by dna show passengers are left at the mercy of pilots, ATC staffers and the faulty radars. Most incidents have occurred because of errors from ATC front, poor traffic planning or by
some kind of human error. Radar errors too have attributed to mid-air incidents. While over the years, these incidents have gone down from 29 in 2011 to 23 in 2013, the numbers are still alarming.
Jet Lite and Indigio flight had nearly missed colliding into each other at the Bengaluru airport in March 2012. The two aircraft were on the verge of hitting each other because of incorrect radar reading.
Mid-air crash between two Indigo aircraft was also saved by a hair's-breadth near Nagpur because of poor radar surveillance.
Incidents of pilot not following the instructions from ATC and ascending and descending at the wrong altitude have also added to the mid-air incidents.
In 19 of the 78 cases reported from January 2011 to July 2014, in 19 the error has occurred because of lack of coordination between pilot and traffic controller, misjudgment on the part of pilot, cabin crew
or some kind of human error. "The problem in most cases have been that the pilot and the ATC Have failed to follow each others instructions correctly," said a DGCA official.
"The DGCA has been conducting pilots proficiency checks regularity.
Required corrective training is given to pilots and Air Traffic Controllers. The training procedures have been amended," reads the DGCA reply to the parliament.
Besides co-ordination between pilot and ATC, radar errors have also resulted in these incidences. Chennai Airport has had maximum incidences of poor radar coverage.
Directorate General of Civil Aviation has mentioned that in order to make air spaces safe, a separate Air Traffic Management Directorate has been created to exclusively manage the traffic movement.
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