NEW DELHI: The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has sought a greater collaboration between civil aviation and defence authorities as a number of airports where commercial flights operate are defence airfields. Submitting its final report in a case at the Navy’s Dabolim Airport in Goa where an Air India Express flight and a Naval aircraft had ended up on the same runway at the same time, the AAIB has sought the establishment of “a formal framework for collaboration between DGCA/AAIB and defence on a priority basis” to ensure exchange of unclassified information and evidence for investigation of an incident or accident.On April 3, 2026, a scheduled flight of AI Express was to take off from Dabolim for Delhi. Due to misunderstanding and miscommunication between the flight deck and ATC, it entered an active runway when a Naval “fighter was rolling” and the incident was a “near miss”. “On seeing the Navy aircraft at lift off, in the opposite direction the pilot-in-command of AI Express 1109 mentioned to the trainee first officer that the fighter did a low pass, as per the cockpit flight recorder recording,” says the report.In its safety recommendations, AAIB has asked the Airports Authority of India (AAI) “to issue a circular to sensitise air traffic controllers for emphasising the use of standard phraseology and to review the use of phrases like ‘expect backtrack’ by ground controllers which can be easily misinterpreted as ‘enter backtrack’. ATCOs must listen carefully to the read-back and correct any factual error or any apparent misunderstanding.”The investigator has asked a taxiway of Dabolim airport to be “considered as a hotspot due to its proximity with bays of civil apron and increased probability of the risk of potential ground collisions and runway incursions.”The Navy has been advised to “publish installation of stop bars and their usage at Dabolim airport (and it may) consider establishing a standard frequency change over procedure for civil traffic transitioning from the ground frequency to the tower frequency, in order to avoid recurring confusion regarding the appropriate frequency to be used.”The crew of the AI Express flight has been asked to “undergo counselling and pilot-in-command to undergo training on the safety lapses that resulted in the runway incursion due to lack of operational clarity and communication miss outs.” The airline has to issue a circular to “sensitise all crew for the lapses encountered in this occurrence.”
