Mid Air Collision
On 12th November 1996, worst
ever accident in the history of civil aviation in India
took place when a Saudi B747 collided with a Kazakh IL76
about 40 miles west of Delhi killing all the 365 persons
on board these two aircraft.
The primary cause of accident as identified by the
Court of Inquiry headed by Justice R C Lahoti of the
Delhi High Court (now in the Supreme Court of India) was
inability of the Kazakh cockpit crew to understand
English.
Much
before this collision the controllers at Delhi had been
submitting to the authorities that the cockpit-crew of
the various CIS country aircraft are not able to
comprehend the instructions given to them and have been
committing serious mistakes quite often.
One
of the controller frustrated by in-action of the
authorities to remedy the situation once wrote in his
duty log book "are we waiting for an accident to
take place"
Unfortunately that is what seemingly
authorities have been waiting for. Only after this
mid-air collision now it has been emphasized that the
Cockpit Crew (Pilot and Co-pilot) shall have good
knowledge of the English Language |
