Vistara Airlines’ last flight takes off from Odisha for Delhi
The last flight of Vistara Airlines from Odisha took off for Delhi on Monday night. This marked the end of the airline's operations from the state ahead of its merger with Air India.
In an intense close shave, a mid-air collision was averted between Vistara and Air India aircrafts on 7 February by just a few seconds.
As per reports,. the Vistara flight descended to an altitude on which the Air India flight was already flying in the Mumbai airspace after 8pm. The planes began to fly towards each other and were only 100 feet apart at one point
Vistara’s A-320 Neo, which was flying from Delhi to Pune as UK 997, had been assigned a flight level of 29,000 feet, but the flight changed its altitude and came down to 27,100 feet. It had 152 passengers on board.
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At the same time, Air India’s flight from Mumbai to Bhopal was already flying at a level of 27,000 feet.
According to a report in Times of India, the change in Vistara’s flight altitude made the two aircrafts fly towards each other with a vertical separation of just 100 feet and 2.8km laterally apart.
The report added that the traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) alarms went off in the cockpits of both the planes because of which the mid air collision was averted as pilots in the planes were alerted.
“At one point, AI 631 and UK 997 were 100 feet apart vertically and 2.8km laterally apart. They were just seconds away from each other. This is the most serious airport (accident) or near-miss in recent times,” TOI quoted a source as saying.
The two pilots of Vistara have been grounded by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
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