Growing air traffic leading to near-accidents

With the aviation industry soaring, lack of sufficient infrastructure to cope with increased air traffic has led to a sharp rise in the number of near-accidents in the country.During 2005, 21 air-miss or near-accident cases involving commercial aircraft were reported, an increase of almost 33 per cent over the previous year.
What is more alarming is that of the 21, two incidents where a "near-collision was avoided", could have been disastrous, involving about 500 passengers, sources said.According to a senior official in the civil aviation ministry, air-miss incidents are categorised as risk of collision, non-adherence to safety norms and a risky instance.
While in a majority of such cases the two flights in question crossed each other under risky conditions, "two of the cases involving nearly 500 passengers had a close shave with disaster", said the source.
09/03/06 Hindustan Times

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