As many as 54 incidents reported during the year about aircraft asked to make a go-around or being in a near-miss situation have been found to be “misleading”, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) on Sunday said.
The state-run airports body, which carries out Air Traffic Control (ATC) operations across the entire country, also termed a recent ‘near-miss’ incident over the Kolkata-controlled airspace as incorrect.
A probe by Regional Controller of Air Safety (ER & NER), Civil Aviation Department and DGCA, carried out on the basis of the reports found “no such breach of separation” between two Boeing 737-800s last week off the Andhra Pradesh coast.
“The records available in the ATC and the video replays of the radar indicate that there is no such breach of separation” on that day, an AAI spokesperson said.
Such news items “only create scare and panic among travelling public particularly when the decisions are taken with respect to dynamic traffic situations in the best interest of safety”, he said.
Terming the 54 incidents reported in the media over the year as “misleading”, he said go-arounds or missed approaches were carried out by arriving aircraft when the runway is not cleared in time by an aircraft.
Maintaining that this was “an internationally accepted practice,” he said carrying out of a missed approach or go-around by an aircraft is a standard procedure which is in line with internationally accepted norms for ensuring safety.
Such procedures “do not come under the category of ’airprox’ (air proximity)” or a near-miss, the AAI said.
“As per ICAO procedures for Air Navigation Services mentioned in Doc 4444, the (air traffic) controller may instruct an aircraft to go around or a Pilot may initiate a go-around in the interest of safety,” the official said, adding that “the data on all the 54 incidents is available on AAI records in the category of ‘go-arounds’.”