Flight collision alarm goes off

For a third time in less than a week, Air Traffic Controllers (ATCs) went into a tizzy when the flight collision alarm of a passenger plane went off between Bhubaneswar and Kolkata, airport officials said on Thursday.

The anti-collision system in a Chennai-Kolkata Jet Airways flight went off at about 4:00 pm on Wednesday near Bhubaneswar, while it was asked to descend by the ATC. At the same time another Spice Jet flight from Kolkata to Bangalore was told to climb to 32,000 feet after take off.

Officials said the alarm went off because the Jet Airways flight descended to 33,000 feet faster than the required speed.

They, however, ruled out the possibility of a collision between the two aircrafts saying they maintained the minimum required vertical separation of 1,000 feet. So there was no breach of separation or safety in the incident. The DGCA is looking into the matter, they added.

On February 10, a possible mid-air collision was averted when an Air India Airbus with 143 passengers on board and an IAF transport aircraft came dangerously close to each other over Assam airspace just a day after a civilian plane narrowly missed colliding with the president's helicopter in Mumbai.