Air India Plane Takes Wrong Taxiway: AAIB Report

New Delhi, Apr 22 (PTI) Situational awareness deficit of the cockpit crew and failure to fully adhere to the air traffic controller's instructions probably led to an Air India aircraft taxiing on a wrong taxiway before aborting the take-off at Goa's Manohar International Airport in December 2024.

The serious incident involving an A320 aircraft of Air India that was to operate the flight AIC2592 from Goa to Hyderabad on December 5, 2024, and there were a total of 158 people, including 7 crew members onboard the plane.

In its final report, Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has mentioned situational awareness deficit and non-adherence to Air Traffic Controller's (ATC) instructions as among the probable causes for the incident.

After ATC cleared the taxiing of the aircraft to the holding point of runway RWY28 via taxiway TWY A5, the plane received line up and take-off clearance. However, the aircraft lined up on taxiway TWY A which was parallel to runway RWY28.

As the aircraft started take-off roll on the wrong runway, ATC instructed the crew to abort the take-off and the aircraft was taxied back to the bay.

AAIB said the issuance of take-off clearance by ATC likely caused the crew's cognitive focus to shift entirely toward executing the take-off.

"This shift may have diminished their situational awareness, resulting in expectation bias or cognitive overload, which prevented them from recognising the visual cues indicating they were at the TWY intersection instead of RWY intersection," the report said and added that both take-off clearance was issued by ATC and take-off checks completed by crew on TWY E near TWY intersection.

"The flight crew did not fully adhere to the ATC taxi instructions and failed to enter TWY A5 before lining up. If the crew had completed the taxi instructions and properly entered TWY A5 before turning for LINEUP, the incident could have been avoided," it noted.


Mentioning about the contributing factors for the incident, AAIB said the Pilot Monitoring (PM) was busy with head down as he was trying to login on Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) to bring the display back to 'on' mode to initiate the lineup checklist and did not check the departure runway when Pilot In Command (PIC) was incorrectly lining up on Taxiway A.

Also, it said the airport is not equipped with an Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System (A-SMGCS) which might have improved situational awareness for ATC with this topography.

AAIB has also made safety recommendations in the 22-page final report, including asking all operators to encourage their crew to cross-check their position using the AMM (Aircraft Moving Map) functionality of the EFB, if available as an additional measure alongside primary navigational instruments before take-off.

EFB systems include real-time GPS positioning and airport charts along with AMM, which allow flight crew to cross-check their actual position on the airfield against the planned taxi route and assigned runway.

According to AAIB, this verification process is a vital step in preventing errors such as taxiing to or departing from the wrong RWY/TWY, enhancing overall situational awareness and safety.

"To avoid EFB screen going into sleep mode issues in the Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) during flight operations, operators should coordinate with IT to optimise screen sleep mode settings while maintaining security," it said.

Among others, AAIB has recommended that Airports Authority of India (AAI) may consider to add a procedure to issue take-off clearance to departing aircraft not before when the aircraft has entered a designated taxi route that clearly leads the departing aircraft to the final holding point as far as practicable.

Another recommendation is that AAI should consider installing Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control Systems (A-SMGCS) at Manohar International Airport.

AAI provides Air Traffic Management Services (ATMS) over the entire Indian air space and adjoining oceanic areas.