BENGALURU: In what Kempegowda International Airport sources here termed as 'rarest of rare' incident, an AirAsia flight from Delhi with around 160 passengers lost communication briefly at 7pm Monday with the Air Traffic Control minutes before landing, report Santosh Kumar B & Petlee Peter.
However, the pilots swiftly switched to an alternative channel to restore contact with the tower and landed the flight safely. An internal probe has been initiated into the incident.
ATC connect snappedbriefly; backup on
KIA sources said the flight with around 160 passengers and a dozen crew was on schedule for arrival at Bengaluru. But to the pilots' shock, communication with the ATC snapped when the aircraft was about 16km from KIA.
"The disruption of communication occurs in the rarest of rare cases, especially during landing, but there is an alternative channel used as backup to guide pilots," said a senior airport official.
The alternative channel gave pilots details about Bengaluru, including ground weather information and wind speed, and the flight landed safely with passengers unaware of the incident, sources said.
The ATC has reportedly raised an incident report. "Alternative channels for radio contact with pilots and ATC in rare instances of regular radio failure is a standard procedure. In aviation terms, it can't be termed alarming unless and until the reserve option also fails," explained another officer.
TOI reached out to AirAsia but received no response till late Tuesday evening.