90 passengers avert death, 'Careless' Air India pilot blamed

Mumbai, Jan 27: Once again the loose-loop of training given to Air India pilots has been exposed when the lives of 90 passengers were put into a high risk over the carelessness and callousness of an Air India pilot.

The pilot of Boeing 737-800 aircraft, without receiving green signal from the Air Traffic Controller (ATC), tried to take-off at Singapore's Changi airport on Monday, Jan 23. According to sources, the flight had reached the critical speed of 260 km/hour and was seconds away from lifting off the runway when an alarmed ATC hauled the jet up.

Times of India reported that the flight could have gone off the runway if the runway had been a short or a wet one. However, fortunately all the passengers on-board managed to escape death.

The daily quoted a source as saying, "A Boeing 777 aircraft had just departed from runway 02 C and so take-off clearance to the next aircraft would have been given only after a span of two minutes."

"The Air India Express Boeing 737 aircraft was critically close, about a second away from reaching V1 speed when the pilot decided to reject the take-off. It crossed the V1 speed even as the pilot pulled back the throttle," added the source.

OneIndia News