The pilot of Mumbai-bound Kingfisher Airlines flight IT 304 that narrowly escaped a major mishap on Tuesday morning seems to have missed the warning sign atop the hill that the flight crossed just before losing altitude. The flight on Tuesday descended to 600 feet above ground level near a Thane creek.

Air Traffic Control (ATC) officials said that there is an Instrument Landing System (ILS) beacon atop the hill. The flight should have been at least 2,000 feet above ground when it was above the Thane creek. An ATC official also said that on this very hill, which is known as the out-marker hill because of the ILS beacon that marks a flight’s approach path, a non-scheduled carrier (VT EQM) had crashed 18 years ago.

“A visual warning at the out-marker hill reads that the flight’s height should be at least 3,000 feet above sea level,” said an ATC official.

A senior official from Kingfisher told Newsline on condition of anonymity that at the time

IT 304 was above the out-marker hill and lost altitude over the Thane creek, the controls of the flight were in the hands of the co-pilot and not the captain. However, on losing altitude, the captain immediately took control and simultaneously the Flight Movement Guidance System (FMGS) of the aircraft failed.

“There was a malfunction in the FMGS and the pilot was correcting that and that is why some altitude was lost,” said the official. According to the official, the matter has been blown out of proportion. “He could have taken go-arounds at 600 feet so there was nothing alarming about it,” he added while admitting that the fall in the flight’s altitude should not have happened.

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