2 planes come within 40m of each other on airport runway

Two fully-loaded passenger aircraft yesterday came face-to-face barely 40 metres away on the taxiway at the airport here, but providentially a disaster was averted after commanders of both the planes alerted air traffic control and switched off their engines

A picture of the aircraft in Delhi tweeted by ANIâu00c2u0080u00c2u0088news

New Delhi: Two fully-loaded passenger aircraft yesterday came face-to-face barely 40 metres away on the taxiway at the airport here, but providentially a disaster was averted after commanders of both the planes alerted air traffic control and switched off their engines.

On a day when a Jet Airways aircraft made an about turn and its belly sank to the ground in the Dabolim airport in Goa, injuring 12 passengers, a departing SpiceJet aircraft found itself in front of an incoming IndiGo Airbus A320 in the same taxi way allegedly due to a miscommunication from the Air Traffic Controller (ATC).

The two aircraft together had 363 passengers on board when the incident took place early in the morning.

Aviation regulator DGCA has started its investigation into the incident but it has not taken any "action" against anyone in this regard, sources said.

Both SpiceJet and IndiGo confirmed the incident and said that at no point of time the safety of the passenger was in danger.

While the IndiGo plane arriving from Lucknow had over 176 passengers on board, the Hyderabad-bound SpiceJet aircraft was carrying 187 passengers when the incident took place, they said.

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