Heavy traffic on Mumbai airport tarmac injures ten as vehicles crash into each other. Bhargavi Kerur reports...
Airport grounds are becoming increasingly accident-prone. A Jet Airways ferry coach collided with an Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) oil tanker at Mumbai airport on Saturday morning, resulting in 10 passengers suffering minor injuries. According to witnesses, the glass door of the ferry coach shattered on impact.
Although the IOC authorities denied the incident, one of the passengers in the coach, Swamy Brahmabhutananda, said, “I saw a vehicle hit our ferry coach, which resulted in the glass door breaking. Our coach was going at just 5km per hour.
The other driver was reversing his vehicle and consequently rammed into our coach. Though I was not hurt, many of my fellow passengers were injured.”
Sources at the airport said that the accident occurred as the ferry coach driver, who was driving in from the international side of the airport, could not see the oil tanker.
“The accident happened near the fire station close to Apron 1 on the international side,” said an official at the airport. The injured were given first aid and shifted to a different coach. Licences of drivers of both the coach and tanker have been confiscated.
Due to massive congestion of ferry coaches, oil tankers and cargo vehicles, collisions between vehicles are becoming commonplace at airports. All four major airports of the country — Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai — are witness to at least one incident a month.
Reaffirming the fact was IOC general manager PG Khetani, who said that they try and train their drivers to be cautious when driving on the tarmac. “Our tankers usually collide with cargo vehicles of Air India and Khambatta Aviation on the international side, but there have been no major accidents so far,” he said.
In yet another incident at Mumbai airport recently, a ferry coach narrowly missed crashing into a support staff on duty. Similarly, ferry coaches of Jet Airways and Air Deccan nearly collided on the tarmac at Bangalore airport a few days ago.
An airport official at Chennai said, “The IOC drivers have even hit the aerobridges.” But at Mumbai airport, the blame is being put on the new Apron Guiding System.
An official at Mumbai airport said, “Earlier, an airline was allotted over six or seven bays in line. But with the new guiding system that randomly allots the bays depending on the vacancy and size of the aircraft, the airline ends up parking aircraft in different directions.
Hence, baggage and ferry vehicles are all over the place creating confusion. The support vehicles have also increased, adding to the congestion.” Mumbai currently has over 700 flight movements every 24 hours. The situation is no different in other airports like Delhi with 600 flight movements, Bangalore over 400 and Chennai over 500 flight movements every day.
To streamline the sloppy movement of vehicles, these airports have introduced the Apron Guiding System and Airport Driving Permit (APD). Admitting the discrepancies on their side, the spokesperson of the Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL), said, “We have made wearing fluorescent jackets a must as they are clearly visible. Also, the rules of the guiding system and the APD have to be strictly followed.”
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