Two Pakistan International Airlines planes closely averted a mid-air disaster near UAE air-space over the Iranian territory on Sunday when both of the commercial aircraft were flying on the same route and altitude, confirmed the officials.
According to the reports a PIA Boeing 777, en route from Islamabad to Dubai, and another airliner, Airbus A320 from Doha to Peshawar, came dangerously close to each other over the Iranian territory near UAE, due to the alleged negligence of Iranian Air Traffic Control (ATC), which is said to have cleared the same altitude for both of the airplanes.
Captain Samiullah was flying Airbus A-320 while Captain Athar Haroon was flying Boeing 777.
A PIA spokesperson, Abdullah Khan told that the Dubai-bound PIA flight, Boeing 777 was on an altitude of 35,000 feet when nearby PIA plane A320 was cleared to descend from 36,000 to 20,000 feet by Iranian officials.
Sensing the danger, the Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) of the aircraft got activated and one of the aircraft was asked to ascend and the other descended as per standard practice, the official told.
TCAS is installed on all the planes and automatically guides the plane by communicating with the TCAS of other aircraft.
“PIA is writing to Iranian air traffic control (ATC) to investigate as the Iranian ATC instructed the plane, but it was wrong,” the official added.
PIA was considered a global leader in commercial aviation until the 1970s, though it recently faced a huge scandal when a federal aviation minister said many Pakistani pilots had fake licenses.
Additionally, one of its domestic flights crashed in a densely populated Karachi neighborhood in May 2020, raising questions about the safety and security protocols followed by the local aviation industry.
