Mumbai, Apr 1: An Emirates and an Etihad aircraft, flying in opposite directions came in proximity of each other over the Indian Ocean, leading to a collision alert warning in the two cockpits on Sunday night. The Indian aviation regulator - the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) - has initiated an inquiry into the near-miss incident.
"Emirates can confirm that flight EK 706 on March 29 from Seychelles to Dubai was involved in an air traffic control incident in Mumbai airspace. At no point was the aircraft, passengers or crew at risk,'' said the airline in a statement issued on Tuesday.
"All Emirates aircraft are equipped with onboard instrumentation so that crew are alerted in a timely manner of all surrounding traffic. The crew informed the authorities of the incident and later filed an Air Safety Report, which will be forwarded to Mumbai Air Traffic Control. Safety is of paramount importance to Emirates, and we will be cooperating fully with the Mumbai Air Traffic Control in the subsequent investigation," the statement added.
Etihad Airways spokesperson did not respond.
Noticing that the two aircraft were perilously close to each other, Mumbai Air Traffic Control alerted one of the commanders by giving a resolution advisory (RA), the sources said.
Sources said that both the aircraft received, what's called the 'resolution advisory' from the onboard Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). All commercial passenger aircraft are fitted with TCAS, which primarily consists of a radar and a transponder and it provides information on air traffic in the vicinity of an aircraft.
Like a radar display screen, the TCAS screen installed in the cockpit gives pilots information on the surrounding aircraft, their proximity and movement. A TCAS gives two kinds of information - the first one called a "traffic advisory" alerts pilots about aircraft that are in the vicinity. The second alert, called a `'resolution advisory' is issued when two aircraft have converging flight paths and are within 30 seconds of each other.
At such a time, the TCAS alert systems installed in both aircraft come into play and an instruction to 'climb' is issued in one cockpit, while the other cockpit gets an instruction to 'descend'. The norm is that the instructions from the air traffic controller, if any, should be ignored and both pilots should follow the instructions issued by TCAS.
Due to the closure of Yemeni airspace in the wake of the on-going civil war in the region, Emirates and Etihad are operating to Seychelles using Mumbai and Muscat airspace.
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