Incident on Mumbai airport runway: planes too close to each other

Dramatic video footage has emerged from a runway at Mumbai airport showing two planes attempting to take off and land on the same runway at virtually the same time. The incident is currently being investigated by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in India.

A striking runway video from Mumbai Airport

This incident occurred on Saturday, June 8, 2024, at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai (BOM). Two aircraft using runway 27R were affected:

• A brand new Air India Airbus A320neo with registration code VT-RTS took off on flight AI657 to Thiruvananthapuram (TRV).
• A two-year-old IndiGo Airbus A320neo with registration code VT-ISV landed on flight 6E5053 from Indore (IDR).

Normally the same runway is used for take-offs and landings, but it is important to leave enough space between aircraft to avoid two aircraft being on the runway at the same time. Finally, one must be prepared for the possibility that the departing aircraft may abort the take-off and the landing aircraft may perform a go-around.

While it’s not unusual for a runway to have one plane landing and another taking off shortly after, in this case, the time between the Air India jet taking off and the IndiGo plane landing is just a few seconds. Suffice it to say, that’s a little too short for comfort.

Was this runway incident a big deal?

There is no denying that this incident created a less than optimal buffer between the aircraft and that the distances between the aircraft should not have been so close. Air traffic controllers are under pressure to allow as many takeoffs and landings as possible while still leaving a safety buffer. In this case, the distance was clearly a little too large.

So is one party to blame here? What caused such a small gap? Was the IndiGo jet coming faster than expected, was the Air India jet too slow to take off, or was the whole sequence just too optimistic?

I have heard some people say that the IndiGo jet should have re-taken off at the last minute, but that would have been even more dangerous. As one experienced pilot with tens of thousands of flying hours explained, the Air India A320neo had exceeded V1 when the IndiGo jet landed, meaning it would not have aborted its takeoff.

If the IndiGo aircraft had attempted a go-around, there would have been two jets in the air in close proximity, which would likely have been even more dangerous, so it could be argued that the IndiGo pilots’ decision to land anyway minimised the overall risk.

In response to this incident, the Indian Air Traffic Controllers Association issued a statement essentially saying that it was a non-event. The organization states that when visibility is good, minimum separation distances can be reduced and therefore there was “no air proximity situation.”

The organization also stresses that the work of air traffic controllers is stressful and that “air traffic control has the discretion to allow landings and departures on the same runway within a few minutes” (but… we are talking seconds, not minutes).