MUMBAI: Mumbai airport on Thursday evening witnessed a near miss involving three aircraft. Two were heading for the runway that was already occupied by a third plane. With an aircraft still on the runway after it landed, a second aircraft was about to land and a third was about to take-off. The incident took place at 6.30 pm and the situation was brought under control by Air Traffic Control (ATC) officials with barely moments to spare.
The ATC aborted the landing of a Jet Lite aircraft that was on a Nagpur-Mumbai flight with more than 100 passengers on board moments after it noticed another Jet Airways aircraft that had arrived from Bhuj still on the runway. Risk of a catastrophe was heightened when a third Jet Airways aircraft that was on a Mumbai-Udaipur flight had just begun to take-off. However, ATC officials rubbished the possibility of ‘any collision’ as the distance between the two planes was more than two miles.