Near-miss as Saudia plane deviates from its flight path

A Saudia airline aircraft deviated from its flight path on Friday evening, risking collision with another aircraft. The plane climbed 200 feet while cruising, reducing the vertical separation between itself and another aircraft from the standard 1,000 feet.

Around 4.20pm on Friday, Gulf Air (GA) Bahrain-Mumbai flight GF 064 was on its way to Mumbai airport.  The plane was 250 miles from Mumbai, cruising at an altitude of 35,000 feet.  “Just then, the resolution advisory (RA) system on board the plane went off,” says a Mumbai Air Traffic Control (ATC) official.  “The system alerted the pilot that an aircraft was 800 feet near it vertically.  The vertical separation minima between two planes is 1,000 feet.”

Just then, Saudia flight SV 801 was en route to Jeddah from Dhaka over Mumbai airspace.  “The Saudia pilot said that probably due to passenger movement in the aircraft, the centre of gravity on the plane was disturbed and he had to climb 200 feet, reducing the vertical minima between him and the Gulf Air plane.” The Saudia plane was then at 34,000 feet.

As the RA went off, the computer guided the GA pilot to climb 200 feet above, bringing back the separation between the two aircraft to 1,000 feet. “The RA alerts the pilot that he is headed for a collision and needs to take immediate action as guided by avionics within 10 seconds,” said a senior commander. But it is not clear why the Saudia plane suddenly climbed 200 feet.

“The plane is a huge Boeing 747 and passenger movement cannot disturb the stability of such a jumbo-sized plane,” the commander said.