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On the morning of January 9, two IndiGo flights narrowly avoided a mid-air collision above Bengaluru airport shortly after take-off, according to senior officials from the aviation regulator DGCA. They claimed that the occurrence was not recorded in any logbooks and that the Airports Authority of India (AAI) was also unaware of it.

The DGCA, India’s aviation authority, was notified of the significant safety breach, and a team led by DGCA Director General Arun Kumar was formed to conduct a thorough investigation. “We’re looking into it and will take the harshest measures against anybody proven to be delinquent,” Kumar told ANI.

Indigo Airlines did not respond to a request for comment on the event. Officials said the close call between two Indigo flights, one from Bangalore to Kolkata and the other from Bhubaneswar, demonstrates incompetence and miscommunications between radar operators and ATC officials, because two planes can’t fly on the same air path. Two IndiGo planes 6E 455 (Bengaluru – Kolkata) and 6E 246 (Bengaluru – Bhubaneswar) were involved in a breach of separation at Bangalore airport on January 7, 2022, according to a DGCA official.

“Both runways were in use, thus the official on duty opted to utilize only one runway for arrivals and departures, i.e., North Runway for arrivals and departures, and South Runway for departures, however this information was not relayed to the South tower controller. Without coordination, the South tower controller dispatched 6E 455 to Kolkata while the North tower controller dispatched 6E 246 to Bhubaneswar “According to the DGCA official.

According to investigators, “the incident happened due to a lack of contact between radar controllers and ATC officers at the time of the incident,” as stated in the preliminary report. Hundreds of passengers boarded the Airbus Indigo planes. According to the report, the two planes took out for their respective destinations and collided in mid-flight over Bengaluru at an altitude of over 3000 feet.