Grounded pilots take refresher course

A dozen pilots with around four to five years of flying experience are going back to learning school for a refresher course to ensure you fly safe

Grounded pilots take refresher course

A dozen pilots with around four to five years of flying experience are going back to learning school for a refresher course to ensure you fly safe. These pilots, flying on both international and domestic routes, were grounded after probes into some of the recent near-accidents indicated cockpit error.

The pilots will be taking lessons to increase their alertness levels and ensure better co-ordination with Air

Traffic Control (ATC) to eliminate errors during flights. "Special cockpit training is felt to be the most practical solution for such errors," said Naseem Zaidi, director general, Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

In the second incident, an Aeroflot aircraft entered a closed taxiway despite markings and blinking red lights indicating closure. In yet another incident on October 17 2008, an aircraft with over 150 passengers arriving from Singapore skid off the runway. The pilot flew back without informing the ATC.

The latest scare came on Monday, when the JetLite Lucknow-Kolkata flight landed on the wrong runway at the Netaji Subash International Airport. "Fortunately for the passengers and the crew, there was no plane on the runway when the aircraft landed," said airport safety official H N Mishra.

Meanwhile, the Mumbai ATC is installing an Advanced-Surface Move-ment Guidance and Control System for better coordination. The Airport Authority of India has placed an order with M/s Holland Institute of Traffic Technology to install surface movement radars at the airport.

What pilots u00a0u00a0will relearn
- Quick identification of mistakes
- Looking at language difficulties for expat pilots
- Increasing alertness
- Better co-ordination with ATC

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