Jet lands on wrong runway at IGI
13 Jun, 2007 l 0026 hrs ISTlTIMES NEWS NETWORK
The Times of India:
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Airport came perilously close to a disaster on Tuesday afternoon when an aircraft landed on the wrong runway - which wasn't even in use at that time.
Luckily, there was neither any plane nor workers on routine maintenance on the closed runway when the Boeing 737-800 touched down. Thus a mishap was averted.
Initial reports suggest that the pilot did not use instrumental landing system either due to a fault in the system or by mistake, leading to the first of its kind incident at IGI.
Both the pilots of SpiceJet's Jammu-Delhi flight (SG 851) carrying 171 passengers have been derostered till a DGCA probe finds whose mistake led to the error. The incident happened around 2.30 pm - when only the main runway was in use.
"During the initial probe, the Air Traffic Controller's tapes were played. The tapes revealed that SpiceJet was given an instrumental landing approach for the main runway.
They also showed that the pilot acknowledged the instructions but he opted for visual approach and landed on the secondary runway. The wrong landing endangered lives of both passengers on board as also people on ground," said a highly placed source.
Moreover, both the pilots are Indians and supposed to be more well versed with airports here. "The cockpit voice recorder will also be examined to check if there were any sounds that could have distracted the plots' attention. We'll also see if there was any communication gap," said the source.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/I...ow/2118360.cms