Devendra Kulkarni
New Member
On 13 Apr 2013 : Mumbai came close to an aviation disaster on Friday morning when an Air India Express aircraft : Boeing 737-800 Registration : VT-AXG ; Landed at the India's Second busiest cross-runway airport without clearance. Luckily, there was no other aircraft movement on the runway or approach funnel at the time.
Flight AI 944 was coming from Abu Dhabi with 81 passengers and took air traffic controllers by surprise when it landed there around 7am. Director general of civil aviation (DGCA) Arun Mishra confirmed the incident and said both the pilot and co-pilot have been de-rostered.
A senior ATC official said controllers in the tower frantically tried to get in touch with the aircraft when they saw it on the radar approaching to land without any clearance.
"ATCs in both the tower and approach control tried to contact the aircraft. Either our voice did not reach them or they chose to ignore our communication. It needs to be found out whether the aircraft's communication set was working. It is unimaginable in a place like Mumbai that a plane just saunters in," said the official.
"The plane landed as per procedure," said an AI spokesperson.
Source : TOI
Flight AI 944 was coming from Abu Dhabi with 81 passengers and took air traffic controllers by surprise when it landed there around 7am. Director general of civil aviation (DGCA) Arun Mishra confirmed the incident and said both the pilot and co-pilot have been de-rostered.
A senior ATC official said controllers in the tower frantically tried to get in touch with the aircraft when they saw it on the radar approaching to land without any clearance.
"ATCs in both the tower and approach control tried to contact the aircraft. Either our voice did not reach them or they chose to ignore our communication. It needs to be found out whether the aircraft's communication set was working. It is unimaginable in a place like Mumbai that a plane just saunters in," said the official.
"The plane landed as per procedure," said an AI spokesperson.
Source : TOI
