The incident took place when the Goa-bound flight AI156, which was preparing to take off from runway 10-28 at 11.15 am, suddenly received an alert from the Air Traffic Control and was asked to return to bay.
A near-collision was averted when an Air India plane, which was about to take off, was called back to the bay from the runway, to make way for an already-landing IndiGo aircraft at the Indira Gandhi International airport on Friday afternoon.
This is third such incident from the airport in the past five months, with IndiGo featuring in three.
The incident took place when the Goa-bound flight AI156, which was preparing to take off from runway 10-28 at 11.15 am, suddenly received an alert from the Air Traffic Control and was asked to return to bay. Sources said that the AI pilot was asked to move back to the bay as an IndiGo's Ranchi-Delhi flight 6E398 was already on the approach path to land on runway 9-27.
"The problem was that the runway 9-27 and 10-28 converge into each other. So when both runways are operational simultaneously, a gap is maintained between the flight landing and taking off from both runways. Since the IndiGo flight had already been asked to 'Go Around' (to prepare for landing in technical aviation terminology) while the AI flight was preparing to take off, one had to be removed from the path. It was therefore conveyed to the AI pilot to return so that the threat of a major collision can be averted," said a source in the Delhi ATC.
Air India or IndiGo officials could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.
Officials also said that if one plane had not been removed from the path, it may have been a disaster. There were 122 passengers onboard the plane. The Air India aircraft finally took off at 12.50 pm. However, they said that further investigations would find out where the miscommunication took place.
"Either it was a miscommunication from the ATC or the pilot did not understand the commands properly that led to the situation. An inquiry has been started to find out what went wrong," said a senior officer.
Past horrors at IGI
Dec 26, 2016: An IndiGo flight, after landing from Lucknow, was taxiing at the runway when a departing SpiceJet flight destined for Hyderabad came on the same runway.
Feb 1, 2017 - A Vishakhapatnam-bound IndiGo aircraft entered a wrong taxiway where a Jet Airways plane was already parked
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