It Could Have Been A Mid-Air Collision But For This Person

IndiGo flight 6E-455 from Bengaluru to Kolkata and 6E 246, from Bengaluru to Bhubaneshwar, had taken off simultaneously in the same direction from parallel runways when they came dangerously close to one another.

An alert approach radar controller closely monitoring the airspace above Bengaluru's Kempegowda International Airport may have saved the lives of hundreds of passengers onboard two IndiGo jetliners that nearly had a mid-air collision shortly after both took off on January 7.

IndiGo flight 6E-455 from Bengaluru to Kolkata and 6E 246, from Bengaluru to Bhubaneshwar, both variants of the Airbus A320, had taken off simultaneously in the same direction from parallel runways when they came dangerously close to one another.

"Approach radar controller gave a diverging heading (to the aircraft) and avoided a mid-air collision," says a preliminary report of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, or DGCA, accessed by NDTV.

Both jetliners were believed to be at an altitude of 3,000 feet when the incident took place.