Alert Women pilot saves over 300 lives in Delhi; 2 planes were 1.8 Km apart

A disaster was slightly averted at Delhi airport this afternoon after a Vistara flight from Ahmedabad and another plane of the same airline – the two carrying around 300 people in total – appreciation to an alert pilot on the former plane.

The Ahmedabad-Delhi flight had just landed and had been instructed by Air Traffic Control to cross an active runway to arrive at the parking bay. 

Meanwhile, a Vistara Airlines Delhi-Bagdogra flight had been approved to take off on that same runway and a crash was only avoided thanks to 45-year-old Captain Sonu Gill on the Ahmedabad-Delhi flight.

The planes were 1.8 km, or 1,800 metres apart, sources said, pointing out that if the pilot had not cautioned ATC of the presence of the other plane, the consequence could have been disastrous.

According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Vistara flight VTI926 had landed on Runway 29L and was told by ATC to cross Runway 29R en route to its parking bay.

However, the ATC official ‘momentarily forgot’ the instructions given to VTI926 and told flight VTI725 to take off from Runway 29R. The regulator’s statement said the ATC ‘on the realisation of the error, based on input from VTI926, tower controller instructed VTI725 to cancel take-off’.

The aviation regulator said an ‘alert pilot in the aircraft crossing the runway (VTI926) alerted Air Traffic Control and the aircraft on its take-off run (VTI725) was ordered to abort take-off’.

According to news agency PTI, the DGCA has derostered the ATC official responsible for the runway incursion event.

The Delhi-Bagdogra flight reverted from the active runway instantly after being instructed to abort its take-off and return to its parking bay. Officials told PTI the plane was refuelled to assure it had enough fuel for the second take-off attempt and to return to Delhi if the pilot encountered bad weather conditions at or en route to Bagdogra.

The pilot of the flight bound declared that the plane would not take off due.

Sources said passengers became a little nervous when the pilot of the flight bound for Bagdogra declared that the plane would not take off due to instructions from ATC.

Protocol at the Delhi airport is that no aircraft or vehicle movement is permitted when a plane is in the process of take-off or landing. Captain Amit Singh, a senior pilot and the founder of the Safety Matters Foundation, told PTI flight ops ‘from closely spaced runways mandate enhanced monitoring and stricter compliance with SOPs to evade a potential traffic collision’.The Delhi-Bagdogra flight was taking off from the newly inaugurated runway and the second Vistara flight, after landing on a parallel runway, was moving to the end of the same runway.

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