Controversy over who responsible for near-miss involving presidential heli continues

Bangalore/Mumbai, Feb 11 (PTI) The controversy over
who was responsible for the near-miss involving a Presidential
helicopter and a passenger plane in Mumbai on Monday continued
to rage but Indian Air Force chief Fali H Major said his
pilots were not to blame as they had landing clearance.

One of the three helicopters forming part of the
Indian President's entourage landed on the runway at the
Mumbai international airport close to an Air India aircraft
with 150 passengers forcing it to abort take off at the last
minute, averting a possible disaster.

Civil Aviation sources however maintained that the IAF
helicopters were not in touch with Air Traffic Control (ATC)
at the Mumbai airport.

Reacting to media reports that the pilot of the IAF
helicopter landed without clearance, the Air chief told
reporters in Bangalore that the helicopters were asked to land
"in sequence 2, 1 and 3.

"One carrying the President, 2 was security. The three
aircraft were specifically cleared by Bombay ATC on runway 27.
So when they were cleared, they came and landed."

Major said the three helicopters were flown by
some of the most experienced pilots in the Air Force who were
drafted to ferry the President.

"They were not aware of the Air India aircraft
because it was on the tower frequency. So, there was no
contact between the two aircraft," he said.

"Probably there is a need to fine tune the procedure
from the side of DGCA or the civil aviation because my pilots
will stick to the frequency they were asked to stick to.
That's it," the IAF chief said.

Civil Aviation sources said the IAF helicopters were
communicating with the approach radar handler, who had asked
them to get in touch with the ATC Tower Control before making
a touch down at the Mumbai airport.

The helicopters were supposed to fly keeping the
runway in sight and report to the Control Tower at the airport
and seek its permission before actually landing, they said.

However, when the ATC control tower saw one of the
three helicopters landing, it scrambled four messages --
starting from 9:17:38 hours till 9:17:46 hours to the Air
India flight to abort take off immediately, the sources said.

The pilot of the Air India plane immediately put on
emergency brakes, reported 'take-off aborted' message back to
the ATC tower, before swerving to the right on the nearest
taxiway. The airline's tyres also burst due to the high speed.

Meanwhile, the sources said the DGCA would give its
preliminary findings on the entire incident in just more than
a week.

While one of the two officials was de-rostered from
the Control Tower, another from the Radar Control was also
taken off duty for the period of the investigation. But DGCA
has cleared the two Air India pilots for flight duties.

Mumbai ATC said it was a normal exercise carried out
after any incident with officials under probe not allowed to
work at their place.

With a growing air traffic in the country, the number
of near-miss incidents are on the rise with 13 being reported
in 2003, 15 in 2004, 21 in 2005 and 26 in 2006. However, there
have been no major accidents in these years. PTI ARC