Runway incursion involving Vistara plane at Delhi airport; DGCA to probe incident

A runway incursion involving a Vistara plane took place at Delhi airport on Wednesday morning as an air traffic controller inadvertently gave take off clearance for another Vistara aircraft from the same runway at the same time, according to an official.

A flight that had landed at the Delhi airport from Ahmedabad and another flight that was to take off to Bagdogra were involved in the incident.

A senior official at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said Vistara aircraft VTI926 operating the flight from Ahmedabad–Delhi was involved in the runway incursion.

The aircraft landed on runway 29L and was instructed by the air traffic controller to cross runway 29R. At the same time, the controller also permitted take off of another Vistara plane VTI725 operating flight from runway 29R, the official said.

According to the official, the air controller concerned has been derostered and the regulator will be probing the incident.

"Momentarily, the tower controller forgot this crossing and issued take off clearance to another Vistara flight VTI725 (Delhi–Bagdogra) from runway 29R.

"On realisation of the error based on input from VTI926, the tower controller instructed VTI725 to cancel take off," the official said.  Vistara did not comment on the incident.