Near Misses of AI and AI Express in Recent Past

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NEW DELHI: Mumbai came close to an aviation disaster on Friday morning when an Air India aircraft landed at the busy 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.

"We are probing the case," Mishra said.

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.

Pilot sacked

This is the second time in almost a fortnight that the DGCA has had to de-roster AI group airline pilots for unauthorized movement. An AI Express pilot taxied out his Boeing 737 (VT-AXG) in Abu Dhabi without ATC clearance on March 23. Airline sources say this serious breach was not reported by the low cost carrier to the regulator. DGCA was briefed about it by Abu Dhabi aviation authorities. "We have de-rostered the pilot," said an official.

In yet another breach earlier this month, a flight taking off from Al Ain (in Gulf) to Cochin went beyond its assigned flight level of 2,500 feet — putting itself in serious danger of a mid-air collision as other aircraft were flying in that level. It took some serious re-calculation by the local ATC to ensure there was no incident.

And on March 14, an aircraft (VT-AXP) taxied to a closed section of a taxiway in Trichy despite clear notice to airmen not to do so and repeated announcement to pilots on the ATC channels.

Almost three years after the terrible Air India Express crash at Mangalore that left 158 dead on May 22, 2010, AI is yet to implement a basic recommendation of the panel that probed the crash — that the low cost carrier should be run as a separate airline with its own staff. The idea was to have accountability as a pilot on deputation from AI to the LCC, who makes a mistake, simply goes back to the parent company unpunished. In recent months, sources say there have been a number of close shaves due to this lack of accountability.

Despite repeated attempts through calls, text messages and emails, no AI and AI Express official responded to TOI queries on these incidents. A questionnaire and requests for interaction on issues regarding AI Express, which were sent on Monday, remained unanswered till Friday night.

"DGCA regulations mandate that a separate airline operator permit holder like AI Express should operate as an independent organization instead of being operated by part-time post holders on deputation from AI," the report on the Mangalore crash had stated. While it said marketing, commercial and administrative functions could can be synergized, "operations, training and flight safety should be independently managed by AI Express".

But AI Express insiders say this is not happening. "There is massive discontent among AI Express pilots who have not come on deputation from AI but are employed by the LCC. In the past few months, nine captains have quit the LCC," said a source.

Interestingly, the financial surveillance of airlines conducted by DGCA in November 2011 had red-flagged two airlines — Kingfisher and AI Express. For AI Express, it said "a prima facie case exists for restricting their operations in view of safety issues".

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