The aviation safety regulator of India- the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has suspended an air traffic controller for a period of three months for approving simultaneous departures of two flights of the IndiGo airline at Bengaluru airport on January 7, which led to the fights coming dangerously close to each other just after take-off. On January 7 morning, two IndiGo planes — flight 6E455 (Bengaluru to Kolkata) and flight 6E246 (Bengaluru to Bhubaneswar) — averted a mid-air collision over the Kempegowda International Airport just after their simultaneous take-off from north and south runways, respectively, according to an IE report.
According to DGCA, the south tower controller gave departure to flight 6E 455 in coordination with the Approach Radar controller. At the same time, the north tower controller gave departure to flight 6E 246 without prior coordination with the south tower controller as well as the Approach Radar controller. Such incidents, which are known as “breach of separation” in regulatory parlance, take place when two aircraft cross the minimum mandatory horizontal or vertical distance in the airspace. As both the planes, after departure, were on a converging heading, the Approach Radar controller gave diverging heading to separate these aircraft, the DGCA further noted.
According to the aviation safety regulator, the vertical and lateral separation between both aircraft at the closest point of conflict was 100 feet (compared to standard 1,000 feet) as well as 0.9 nautical miles (compared to standard 3 nautical miles). This was classified as a serious incident and the matter was investigated by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau. The regulator, on the basis of the regulatory assessment, has decided to issue a warning letter to the Tower supervisor for not monitoring the activities of the ATC tower as well as non-reporting the incident. Further, the north tower controller’s licence has been suspended for three months as he did not follow rules and procedures regarding runway operations, and also, he did not report the incident, the DGCA added.