Chartered plane’s wing hits airline’s tail
DGCA team to probe incident
MORMUGAO, NOV 16 — In an incident that may have send shivers down the spine of airport authorities and passengers alike, an Iber World chartered airline plane brushed against the rear portion of a Moscow bound Transaero Boeing 747 carrying 306 Russian passengers at Dabolim airport on Sunday at about 1.54 pm.
According to reports, the Transareo, which was earlier hit by a bird, after under doing necessary repair was supposed to fly off to Moscow 
was grounded as the United Kingdom bound Iber World aircraft after alighting its passengers brushed its wing against the rear portion of the Transaero.
The rear wing of the Transaero was ripped off while the tip of the wing of the Iber World plane was also damaged in the impact . No casualties were reported with sources further saying that all 306 passengers on board the Transaero are being accommodated at Radisson and Country Inn resorts.
Since the parking bays were occupied by these jumbo aircrafts, about 12 flights were delayed for about 20-40 minutes and the naval area was used for parking the landing flights. Dabolim airport lacks parking space and out of nine parking bays only one is used for jumbo-size aircrafts.
Airport Director D Paul Manickam informed mediapersons that at 1.45 pm a minor accident occurred at the Dabolim airport involving two flights – Transaero, a Moscow-bound flight, and an Iber World airplane heading for Britain.
“The Iber World airline brushed against the Transaero flight. The incident occurred due to the lack of sufficient parking bays. The airport authority was trying to shift both these flights to create parking space, which in turn led to delay of about 12 flights for 20-40 minutes,” said Manickam.
He further said that Transaero was earlier hit by a bird and after inspecting the flight by a team of technicians the flight was all set to fly to Moscow.
“All the stranded passengers will be flown to Moscow on Monday with another Transaero flight. The technicians of both the grounded flights will come on Monday and after assessing the damage and repairing the same will fly back,” said Manickam.
Manickam stated that due to garbage and drying of fish and fishing nets within the vicinity of the airport, there has been a rise in bird hit.
“These birds come to feast on these things and the local civic authority have turned a blind eye towards this menace,” he added.
Transaero Station Manager Harpal Singh has attributed the accident due to negligence on the part of ground staff who did not marshal the flight properly.
“Had the ground staff taken care earlier, this incident could have been avoided,” he added.
“It could have been a major disaster if the engine of the Transaero was on,” said Singh.
PTI adds: A team of Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) will arrive in Goa tomorrow to probe the
incident.
Goa airport authorities have submitted a preliminary report of the incident while detailed investigation would be conducted by the DGCA team.
“The team will see whether there was any lapse on the part of the pilots,” Manickam said.
