An air disaster was averted near the Madurai airport when two passenger flights came dangerously close on Saturday afternoon. The near-miss occurred when an Air India aircraft from Chennai to Madurai, carrying 118 passengers, about to land at Madurai airport, came close to an ATR aircraft of Jet Airways from Thiruvananthapuram
to Chennai with 55 passengers on board. The pilots of the Air India flight veered right following an alert from the Madurai air traffic control, according to ATC sources. “The incident occurred when the Air India flight pilots reportedly took a wrong direction ignoring the directions from the Madurai ATC at about 17,000 ft when the Jet Airways flight from Thiruvananthapuram was crossing in the reciprocal direction.
“The preliminary reports say that the Air India pilots made a mistake in following the procedural control direction and came in the direction of the other flight in the Chennai direction. Though the Air India flight took a wrong turn, the pilots averted the dangerous situation and landed safely at Madurai,” said a senior ATC official.
The collision avoiding system helped avert the disaster at the last moment. The officials maintained that the director general of civil aviation would order an enquiry into the incident. “As there is no radar coverage in the Tiruchy-Madurai region, the Thiruvananthapuram ATC gave clear direction to follow the separation maintenance much before the aircraft entered the non-radar area. The flights have to maintain a minimum of 1,000 ft from each other which they did not,” said the official.