Near miss at Kolkata airport

A TWO-plane crash was narrowly averted at Kolkata’s International Airport in India on New Year’s Eve.

The pilot of an Air India flight full of Hajj pilgrims from Jeddah noticed an Air Alliance cargo plane to Guwahati on the runway for his incoming landing. On alerting air traffic control he was told to hover while the cargo plane was told to take off.

An investiation is underway but local air traffic control blame the near miss on heavy fog.

This is the second near miss in as many months at the airport. On 5 November 2008 two Jet Airways and a Kingfisher Airlines aircraft almost collided on the runway. On that occasion it was allegedly the Kingfisher pilot’s mistake.

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