GAYA: The Airports Authority of India on Friday de-rostered the Air Traffic Controller (ATC) at Gaya international airport and ordered an inquiry into the faux pas due to which nearly 200 passengers aboard the Myanmar Airways and Air India flights had a narrow escape on Wednesday.
The Myanmar Airways plane intruded into a prohibited area about a minute before the Air India’s Yangon-Gaya-Delhi flight landed, reports The Times of India.
The Myanmar plane had 85 passengers aboard. While the number of passengers aboard the Air India flight could not be immediately known, unofficial estimates put the number at over 100.
Sources said the Myanmar Airways’s Yangon-bound flight MMA 602 was given clearance only for taxing by the ATC up to a “holding point”. But the pilot breached the instructions and went into take-off mode.
The Air India flight from Yangon for Delhi was then only six nautical miles away from Gaya, and was headed for landing. “The tragedy was averted by a time gap of less than a minute at 2.52pm ,” an official said, preferring anonymity.
