A United Airways flight headed to Dhaka from Muscat with 148 on board averted a mid-air collision with a Saudi Arabian flight inside Kolkata airspace yesterday.
Although the Kolkata Traffic Air Control refused to comment on the matter, the Indian Airports Authority is believed to have ordered an enquiry into the incident, reported Indian television NDTV.
Captain Ariful Islam of Bangladesh’s United Airways said his plane came within “visual distance” of an aircraft flying towards him.
He said that the sky was clear and he “had a visual” of the approaching flight, believed to be a Saudi Airlines cargo plane.
When the United Airways flight was about 270 miles from Dhaka and flying at 33,000 feet, Kolkata Air Traffic Control instructed Captain Ariful to descend to 29,000 feet.
However, when the plane began to descend as instructed, the on-board warning system – Traffic Collision Avoidance System – went off and alerted that a flight was approaching directly at 32,000 feet.
He immediately alerted the Kolkata Air Traffic Control and ascended to 33,000 feet again.
“There had been some mistake. All conversations have been recorded and can be checked,” Captain Islam told NDTV.
Normally, there has to be a height difference of at least 1,000 feet between flight routes.
The Saudi Airlines flight was possibly a cargo flight from Hong Kong to Jeddah.
However, the details of the flight have yet to be confirmed.
