New Delhi, January 19
The incident, considered to be a safety breach, is being looked into by a panel headed by the DGCA Director, Arun Kumar.
According to officials, IndiGo flight 6E-445 from Bengaluru to Kolkata and flight number 6E246 from Bengaluru to Bhubaneswar took off in the same direction from parallel runways and came close to one another. The incident reportedly occurred at an altitude of 3000 feet.
Two runways
Sources say, Bengaluru airport has two runways – North and South – with one being used for arrival and another for departure. The runways are not used for simultaneous departures as flights taking off from the same distance can intersect one another. Hence parallel runway operations are not possible.
BusinessLine reached out to both IndiGo and the DGCA for comments. IndiGo declined to comment, while the DGCA was yet to respond to queries.
On January 7, apparently the South runway was closed by the shift-incharge, with just the North one being in operation for both arrivals and departures. However, the same was not communicated properly thereby leading to the two flights departing from converging runways at the same time.
The matter was noticed by a radar controller who intervened to alert the aircrafts.
Apparently, the incident was also neither reported in the logbooks nor was the Airports Authority of India (AAI) alerted of the same. The DGCA probe is reportedly looking into this aspect, too.