A mid-air collision between two aircraft was averted at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI) on Friday.
Around 11 a.m., an Air India Delhi-Goa flight (AI 156) that had 122 passengers, including three infants, was given the go-ahead for takeoff by the air traffic control (ATC) from runway 28/10. However, at the same time, an IndiGo flight from Ranchi (6E 398) was cleared for landing on the nearby runway 27/09, sources said.
As the two runways are not parallel and their flight paths are converging, there was a possibility of a mid-air collision.
The mistake was realised in time and the Air India flight was asked to abort its takeoff immediately and the IndiGo flight told to stop landing and make a ‘go around’.
A probe has been ordered into the incident, the sources said.
