Was this incident worse than the JQ57 one? This captain was suspended.
Jet Airways captain tried to land in Changi without clearance
Published on Apr 21, 2012
By Karamjit Kaur
A Jet Airways pilot who tried to land at Changi Airport without getting the all-clear from air traffic controllers has been suspended by India's civil aviation authority.
Captain R. Chaudhary was found out and suspended only recently for the incident, which happened on Nov 14 last year.
He was piloting an Airbus 330 aircraft, with more than 200 passengers, that was flying into Singapore from New Delhi.
Capt Chaudhary continued to fly for the privately-owned airline until the recent suspension of his licence by India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
The DGCA is continuing its investigations but in the meantime, disclosed that the plane descended to just about 70 feet, or about 20 metres, above the runway when Capt Chaudhary took it up again.
It eventually landed safely with no injuries to passengers or crew.
Instead of reporting the incident to the airline as is the standard procedure, the pilot kept mum.
The DGCA was alerted only when a mid-November routine technical check of the aircraft revealed that there was a recent aborted landing.
The pilot had initially claimed he took the aircraft up at 70 feet because he was uncomfortable about the landing.
Under normal circumstances, a captain has full authority to abort a take-off or landing; even divert the aircraft to another airport if he feels there are safety or other concerns.
In this case, it was discovered that the pilot had no approval to land in the first place.
Jet Airways, owned by Indian billionaire Naresh Goyal, who started out in the industry as a travel agent, began flying to Singapore in December 2005.
It operates from Changi Airport Terminal 3 to New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.