Mumbai: An internal probe into the March 29 near-miss between an Emirates flight and an Etihad jet in Mumbai airspace has found four air traffic controllers at fault and revealed that a critical surveillance system, which showed the two aircraft flying towards each other, was left unmanned.
A series of missteps by the controllers effectively stacked the two aircraft in such a manner that they were aligned on a collision course, the inquiry has revealed. Only one of the controllers has been taken off his roster. The other three remain on duty. "The first ATC gave the Emirates flight a direct routing - allowing the flight a shortcut - as requested by the pilot. This officer then left for breakfast without changing the flight level and updating the system. The second controller who took over also went for breakfast. The third controller who took charge did not know about the direct routing allowed for Emirates, and permitted the Etihad flight to take the same shortcut, putting the two planes on a collision course," a senior officer in the ministry of civil aviation told Mumbai Mirror. The fourth controller was meant to monitor the Automatic Dependent Surveillance (ADS) system, which parses data from the airplane's on-board navigation and global positioning systems data, assisting controllers in determining the aircraft's spatial and temporal location. This ATC left his station unattended, causing the error committed by his three colleagues to go unnoticed.
04/04/15 Aditya Anand/Mumbai Mirror
A series of missteps by the controllers effectively stacked the two aircraft in such a manner that they were aligned on a collision course, the inquiry has revealed. Only one of the controllers has been taken off his roster. The other three remain on duty. "The first ATC gave the Emirates flight a direct routing - allowing the flight a shortcut - as requested by the pilot. This officer then left for breakfast without changing the flight level and updating the system. The second controller who took over also went for breakfast. The third controller who took charge did not know about the direct routing allowed for Emirates, and permitted the Etihad flight to take the same shortcut, putting the two planes on a collision course," a senior officer in the ministry of civil aviation told Mumbai Mirror. The fourth controller was meant to monitor the Automatic Dependent Surveillance (ADS) system, which parses data from the airplane's on-board navigation and global positioning systems data, assisting controllers in determining the aircraft's spatial and temporal location. This ATC left his station unattended, causing the error committed by his three colleagues to go unnoticed.
04/04/15 Aditya Anand/Mumbai Mirror
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