Two pilots taken off flying duty after Goair flight avoids collision

MUMBAI: Two expat Goair pilots operating a Mumbai-goa flight (G8 141) that nearly collided into a Spicejet flight on October 22 have been taken off flying duty. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the safety regulator, told the budget carrier to bench the crew as the preliminary investigations showed that the foreign pilots might have misread instructions from the air traffic control (ATC) tower, possibly because they had problems understanding the language.

“The crew had some interpretation issues. We have asked the airline not to put them on the flight roster until these concerns are sorted,” said a senior DGCA official who did not wish to be named.

A Goair spokesperson did not confirm or deny the benching of the crew. “DGCA is investigating the matter. We will comment on it after the investigation is complete,” said the spokesperson.

Sources from the airlines said that the aircraft assigned to operate G8 141 was acquired on wet lease from a Polish company. Wet lease means that the plane was hired along with the crew. “That explains the communication glitch,” said a senior ATC official.

The Goa ATC was navigating flight movement through verbal communication when the incident took place as the airport’s radar services were down for maintenance.

The Spicejet flight to Hyderabad had barely taken off when it’s pilots received an emergency collision alert from an in-built device.

The alert came from the Traffic Collision Advisory System (TCAS), an in-built device which throws collision warnings to aircraft mid-air. The TCAS issues two kinds of warnings — traffic advisory and resolution advisory — the first indicates a plane at a vertical distance of 35 to 40 seconds, while the latter is issued when two mid-air planes are separated by 25 to 30 seconds. In this case, it was the latter.

The resolution advisory also means the pilot is asked to take immediate evasive action to avoid a collision, which happened in this case.

DGCA data on near-misses showed that there were 129 such mid-air scares, also known as airprox or air proximity, in the aviation parlance between 2011 and the first half of this year. MUMBAI: Patients suffering from four life-threatening, rare genetic disorders will not be charged for screening test at public and private hospitals in the state. The blood test, known as Dried Blood Spot Sampling (DBS), which costs Rs3,500 to Rs4,000, is a primary diagnostic tool for Gaucher (rare genetic disorder affecting spleen, liver, skeletal, abdomen and brain) and three other genetic disorders.

The move will detect more cases of Lysosomal Storage Disorders (a group of around 50 rare inherited metabolic disorders). Officials from Sanofi Genzyme, a biomedical company developing therapies and diagnosis kits for patients affected by LSDS, said attempt is made to reach out to larger number of patients suffering from rare genetic disorders.

The screening test uses enzyme activity to identify patients affected with the disorder before confirming the diagnosis. DBS scores over other conventional methods (blood or plasma samples) in terms of ease of collection, storage and transportation. It is particularly useful for screening rare disease patients in regions lacking specialised laboratories.

Dr Mamta Muranjan, additional professor of pediatrics, in-charge of Genetic Clinic, KEM Hospital, said, “DBS kit involves collection of blood on a special paper. Five drops of blood are collected from a single prick, and vein puncture for blood collection is avoided to make it less painful. It can be sent by post or courier.”

Patients are notified of the results by the diagnostic laboratory in one to two weeks.

Dr Muranjan said, “Early diagnosis of Gaucher’s disease is critical as treatment can be early and complications prevented.”