A serious aviation incident was narrowly averted at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on Sunday when an Ariana Afghan Airlines flight from Kabul mistakenly landed on the wrong runway while another aircraft was taking off, a senior official from India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said.
According to the official, flight FG-311 — an A310 arriving from Kabul — had been cleared to land on Runway 29L but instead touched down on Runway 29R. The runway deviation created a high-risk situation, prompting an immediate investigation by the regulator.
The pilot-in-command (PIC) told authorities he lost the aircraft’s Instrument Landing System guidance at around four nautical miles from the runway. He said the aircraft veered right, after which he executed a visual landing on Runway 29R in low-visibility conditions.
Air traffic control (ATC) confirmed that clearance was issued only for Runway 29L, and the Ariana captain acknowledged receiving that instruction. The PIC, however, claimed that after passing the Final Approach Fix, both onboard ILS receivers malfunctioned while the aircraft was aligned for 29L.
“Due to poor visibility and the failure of the ILS guidance, the aircraft unintentionally deviated from the intended approach path. We were not advised by the Delhi tower of any deviation during the approach,” the PIC reported.
He added that he realized the error only after landing, when he observed that the aircraft had touched down on the adjacent runway.
The DGCA official said it remains unclear whether the problem stemmed from an aircraft-specific ILS malfunction or another technical issue. The investigation is expected to review cockpit recordings, ATC communication, and navigational equipment performance to determine the sequence of events that almost led to a catastrophic runway conflict.
