India had 72 incidents of near-miss since 2010: Venugopal

New Delhi: A total of 72 incidents of two aircraft coming close to each other have been reported from 2010 till date in the country but most of them had “no risk of collision”, Minister of State for Civil Aviation, KC Venugopal told Lok Sabha today. He also said that since January last year, there had been 20 cases of emergency or rough landings due to medical and technical reasons by the airlines in the country.[caption id=“attachment_642132” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] No safety in the skies. Reuters[/caption] In a written reply, Venugopal said that in 2010, 22 incidents of near-miss were reported, out of which only two were of the category “safety not assured” while rest were of “no risk of collision”. In 2011, there were 29 cases, of which three were of the category “safety not assured” while rest were of “no risk of collision”. Last year, the number of such incidents dropped to 18 and all were of “no risk of collision” while this year, three cases have been reported in January in Kolkata and Chennai region, he said. In reply to a separate question, the Minister told the House that there were 20 cases of emergency or rough landings due to medical and technical reasons since January last year. Of these, two were due to the fault of cockpit crew while one was due to lightning strike, rest were because of medical reasons. While replying to a separate question, Venugopal said Airports Authority of India, the state-owned airport operator, had collected a total of Rs 150.72 crore as parking charges from private aircraft across the country during the last financial year (2011-12). PTI