Indigo planes

The system also instructs pilots about the avoidance action (resolution advisory) to maintain the ideal distance between two aircraft. “The Tcas-resolution Advisory system was triggered on two of our aircraft operating Coimbatore-hyderabad and Bangalore-cochin routes respectively on July 10. Following normal procedure this has been reported to the regulator,” Indigo said.

The Hyderabad-bound flight 6E-779 had 162 passengers and the one flying to Kochi, 6E 6505, was carrying 166 passengers.

“The planes came face to face when 6E-779 was at 27,300 ft and 6E-6505 was at 27,500 ft, reducing the distance to just 200 ft. The aircraft were hardly four miles from each other,” a DGCA official said on condition of anonymity.

Two aircraft have to be at least 10 nautical miles (lateral separation) and 1,000 feet (vertical separation) apart from each other.

DGCA has initiated an enquiry and will check the flight data before questioning the pilots, said an official who asked not to be named. In Thursday’s incident, Air Arabia flight G9-521 (Sharjah to Chittagong) and Indigo flight 6E-732 (Hyderabad to Lucknow) came close to each other and were just 6 nautical miles apart east of Jabalpur. “If the distance reduces to less than 10 nautical miles it is called breach of separation and pilot gets an alert. The pilot acts accordingly and remains in touch with ATC,” said an ATC officer on the condition of anonymity.

According to the Airports Authority of India (AAI), the pilots did not issue any resolution advisory and the required distance was maintained after that.

“Our pilot operating 6E-732 flight from Hyderabad to Lucknow followed all instructions given by the Nagpur ATC. We rely upon ATC’S traffic advisory and comply with their instructions. The aircraft made a normal landing and at no point was safety compromised,” said an Indigo spokesperson. An email sent to Air Arabia on Thursday evening did not elicit a response.

“Institutional correction and better technology is required for safer skies,” said Kapil Kaul, CEO and director, Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), an aviation research body. “Due to large flow of flights, such breach of threshold do happen. As long as TCAS is activated and reasons are probed, we learn from it.” Khan’s first wife, Jemima Goldsmith, Tyrian’s guardian.

Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-insaf (PTI) party haven’t reacted to the claims made in Reham Khan’s book. A PTI spokesman did not respond to phone calls and messages.

Reham Khan writes: “After a few weeks of our marriage, as we discussed Tyrian, Imran casually added, ‘You know she isn’t the only one I have.’ He grinned mischievously. ‘There are 5 in total, that I know of.’

‘Five what?!’ I gasped. ‘Kids,’ he laughed.

‘What? You have five illegitimate children! How do you know?’ I asked. ‘Well, the mothers told me,’ he said. ‘All White’s?’

‘No, some are Indians. The eldest is 34 now.’”

She also asked why the other women hadn’t spoken and, according to the book, Imran Khan replied: “Well, because they were all married and they didn’t want their marriages to be destroyed.” Imran also said he had told Jemima, to whom he was married from 1995 to 2004, about these children.

Ahead of their marriage in January 2015, Reham Khan writes, she heard several stories of Imran Khan’s past relationships, and to her surprise, he confirmed a lot of them, including relationships with Bollywood stars.

She writes: “Imran was keen to confirm all the stories I had thought were just rumours. The most famous story, of course, was that of a Bollywood superstar of the ’70s. Considered to be one of the sexiest heroines of all time, there had been rumours of Imran and her. We had heard these whilst we were growing up. Imran confirmed to me that they were true. Though Imran was happy to sexually engage with actresses, he and the family clearly thought little of them.”

Reham Khan claims Imran told her he had ended the relationship with the star but a “film producer friend” of the star told her it was “actually Imran who had chased her, and that she had been very financially benevolent towards him”.

She writes, “Imran’s stories always painted the women in an unflattering light. He told me how he met her in Bombay, had his fill, and moved on. But, according to Imran, the lady followed him to London and became clingy.”

India also figured in Imran Khan’s alleged attempts to control Reham Khan after their marriage, which ended in October 2015. She writes how Imran forced her to cancel a visit to New Delhi, where she had been invited to a conference of women journalists in September 2015.

Imran Khan conveyed his message to Reham Khan through his secretary, Awn Chaudhry.

Reham Khan writes, “... Awn called me and conveyed Imran’s message that I should not fly out to India… Awn asked me not to attend the conference as a sign of goodwill towards my husband. My husband couldn’t even say it to me directly. ”

She adds that Imran was “deeply uneasy at the thought of letting me interact with any politicians or diplomats”.

Reham Khan writes: “Maybe he wanted to keep me in his life but my dreams for Pakistan clashed with the agenda he was told to stay on.”