Major air disaster averted at Mumbai airport

MUMBAI: An air disaster was averted at the Mumbai international airport when two small private jets were involved in a near-miss on Saturday
after they took off from the same runway almost simultaneously.

According to a DGCA official, the incident occurred when the Air Traffic Control(ATC) reportedly gave the clearance to the pilots of the two chartered aircraft to take off around the same time from Runway 27.

One of the planes was a chartered aircraft 'Challenger' from Bermuda while the other was a CRJ jet belonging to Pinnacle Air of India, the official said. One of the planes was headed for Aurangabad while the other was going to Delhi.

It was not immediately known how many passengers were in the two aircraft, both of which had non-scheduled operator permits. The incident happened around 11:30am, the official said.

Further details are awaited. It was the second time in three months when there was a air-miss at Mumbai airport.

On May 31, two aircraft got clearance to take off simultaneously from two runways but the pilots stopped the planes in the nick of time.

The incident occurred at 7:27am when Air India's Mumbai-Delhi and Jet Airways' Mumbai-Kolkata flight were scheduled for departure.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com