Air India plane in near miss as Pakistan ATC gives incorrect information.
In a mid-air scare, "incorrect" input by Pakistan's air traffic control to a Mumbai-bound Air India Dreamliner plane from London led it to come close to another aircraft, prompting a sharp reaction from India.
The Mumbai-bound Air India flight AI-130 from London's Heathrow Airport on Tuesday escaped a near miss incident after the Karachi Air Traffic Control (ATC) gave pilot a wrong frequency that could have changed the flight path of the Boeing 787 and brought it close to Philippine's Cebu Airline from Dubai.
"It is a very serious incident and we do not have any precedent of such an incident," Airports Authority of India chairman Alok Sinha told reporters on the sidelines of the India Aviation show here.
"We are still deliberating (decide) as to what level should the issue be taken up — at the diplomatic level or at some other forum," Sinha said, asserting "we will ensure that such an incident does not occur again."
The Karachi ATC also gave its Mumbai counterpart an incorrect ETA (expected arrival time) when the Air India aircraft was flying over Sapna and Nobat, thereby reducing the time gap between it and the Cebu plane.
In the incident that occurred at 1.30am on Tuesday, the Karachi ATC asked the pilot of the Air India flight to report two-way with the ATC in Mumbai.
However, the pilot even after trying various frequencies could not contact the Mumbai ATC as it had not yet reached Mumbai airspace but later managed to establish contact with the Ahmedabad ATC.
Aviation sources said that safety was "not compromised" by the alert Air India pilots who landed the aircraft in Mumbai in an incident-free manner.
Officials did not say how many passengers were on board the aircraft.
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The Karachi ATC did not convey our message to the pilots. It directed the plane to a wrong frequency and gave us incorrect information that the commander will contact Mumbai soon," an aviation source said, adding that the pilot realised something was seriously wrong when he noticed heavy air traffic.
The aviation sources said that while the Mumbai ATC officials were briefing their Pakistani counterparts regarding the problem, they could hear laughter in the background. "This is a very serious incident and the Mumbai ATC has taken up the matter with Karachi officially," the Airports Authority of India chairman, Alok Sinha, said.
The Indian pilots who have had to deal with the Pakistan airport ATCs were not surprised. One of them said that the Karachi airport officials not cooperating with the Indian pilots was "nothing new", even as aviation expert Vipul Saxena said such "irresponsible behaviour was unheard of". He said, "This mischief could have led to one of the biggest disasters of our times. I hope the government will take up this issue with Islamabad."