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Close shave at IGI: AI plane forced to abort take off at 185kmph

NEW DELHI: A collision was averted between two commercial aircraft at IGI Airport on Friday morning by asking the plane that was about to get airborne to reject take off at a very high speed.This incident happened when an IndiGo aircraft was about to land at the airport’s runway 27 and an Air India plane was set to take off from the nearby runway 28. These runways are not parallel and merge towards Dwarka side. The AI plane was taking off towards Dwarka and the IndiGo plane was coming in to land from Vasant Vihar side (which further on goes towards Dwarka).“The incoming IndiGo aircraft rejected landing at the last minute and took off again. The AI plane was also taking off in the same margin direction. Therefore, the AI pilots were asked to immediately abort take off,” said a senior air traffic control (ATC) official.Had both the planes continued to ascend in the same margin direction, it could have been either a disaster or a very close call indeed. Both the planes were Airbus A-320s.“AI 156 with over 120 people on board was rolling at a high speed of 100 knots or 185 kmph to get airborne to Goa from runway 28 at about 11.30 am when the ATC asked it to reject take off. AI flight Captain Amit Tyagi very skilfully managed to reject take off. The AI Airbus A-320 safely stopped and then had to return to the terminal for checks on the brake assembly and tyres is mandatory after high speed rejects,” said a source.While IndiGo did not comment on this issue, sources say its flight (6E-398) was coming from Ranchi and the pilot had cited “unstable approach” as reason for going around.The AI engineering was surprised to see that despite the high speed reject in this hot weather, the plane tyres did not burst or deflate and commended the skills of the pilots in doing this job. it finally took off for Goa at 12.50 pm after all checks.Asked if the AI plane should have to take off when another plane was coming in to land on a margin (not parallel) runway, the senior ATC official said: “The clearance to take off in such situations is given in anticipation that the other plane will land normally. It was a rare chance that the incoming plane had to reject landing and take off again, which required for this action to be taken.” IGIA is India’s busiest airport, handling close to 1,200 flights a day. The Delhi Airport operator and ATC have been locked in a tussle as the airport — despite its three runways — handles much less flights than it should with those many airstrips. And the rush to handle an increasing number of flights leads to the kind of scare that was witnessed on Friday.While the maximum hourly capacity of IGI Airport’s three runways is 75 aircraft (70 schedule and 5 non schedule), the “practical hourly capacity to be considered for allocation of slots” is much less at 67 (62 schedule and 5 non schedule). With two runways (when one is closed for repairs), the hourly capacity is between 45 and 60. Also between 11 pm and 6 am, it can handle a maximum of 45 flights an hour due to special runway usage procedure to cut on night-time noise from planes. Delhi is the only airport in India that has three runways but due to airside infra crunch, the hourly aircraft movement remains way below potential. In such a situation, handling the massive traffic sometimes leads to situations like Friday’s mix-up.IGIA’s runway 27 and 28 cannot be used simultaneously as the two merge towards Dwarka side. The ATC wants this runway to be straightened and made parallel to the other two runways 28 and 29. However, this work may happen at the fag end of IGIA’s overall development plan as Delhi International Airport Pvt Ltd (DIAL) is first going to lay down the fourth runway which will be parallel to runways 28 and 29.Irrespective of the direction in which planes are landing and taking off, something determined by wind flow, parallel operations cannot happen from runway 28 and 27.