Flight to C?garh aborted

Passengers aboard an Indian flight to Chandigarh got a rude shock on Saturday afternoon when the pilot was forced to abort take-off while the plane was in full throttle. Reason: An Ariana Airlines aircraft scheduled to land on the same runway had reached Delhi.

Indian’s IC 864, scheduled for departure at 1.20 pm., was all but ready to lift off when the pilot suddenly applied the emergency brakes. If that was unnerving for the people on board, the next hour and 40 minutes — which they spent waiting for the aircraft to undergo a mandatory cooling-off period before it could take-off a second time — was no less annoying. The flight finally took off at 3 pm.

The sources indicated that the order to abort — which had come from Air Traffic Control (ATC) — had been issued not only because of the arrival of the Ariana Airlines flight but also because the Indian pilot had been unable to complete take-off as rapidly as it should have been done.

“Take off was aborted on the advice of ATC. The aircraft returned to the bay to check the cooling of the brakes. The aircraft took off after the brakes cooled and other mandatory checks were completed,” sources in Indian said.

Describing the sequence of events, airport sources told HT that IC 864 had been asked to line up on the runway and had been given clearance for take-off. The aircraft, however, did not take off as soon as it should have, possibly because of some delay in the mandatory pre-flight checks. Meanwhile, the Ariana Airlines aircraft, which was scheduled to land on the same runway, had reached a distance of three nautical miles. At two nautical miles, it would have to be given clearance to land. Hence, ATC asked IC 864 to abort take-off. The sources asserted that the pilot could not be blamed for the delay as “he would have been conducting mandatory pre-flight checks, which are an essential for passenger safety”.

Airport sources said that there were at least four or five such incidents every month at Delhi and Mumbai airports. That’s no consolation to the passengers on IC 864 who not only got a bad scare but also wasted precious time.