Indias Own Hudson Hero - SS Kohli

New Delhi: A heavy jolt was followed by the sound of tyres bursting, then the temperature rose unbearably aboard Indian Airlines flight IC 866. Passengers recounted the agony on Monday after the flight from Goa landed in Delhi, having survived a scare that saw the aircraft narrowly missing one of the President’s helicopters in Mumbai.


“Our flight was just about to take off when the pilot clamped the brakes hard, causing a heavy jolt. Bursts followed and then we saw three helicopters landing, one after the other, in front of our flight,” said Vijay Verma, who runs an advertising agency in Mumbai.

“It was a heavy jolt, but no one was hurt,” another passenger said, but what followed was unbearable as the emergency braking caused four tyres to burst and then sent the temperature inside the aircraft soaring.

“It wasn’t just the tyre bursts. The engine heated up and the fuel tank was full,” said Pranav Khullar, an employee with the Ministry of Finance.

The flight landed in New Delhi at 2.45 pm, with only 120 of the original 145 passengers, the rest having cancelled their tickets after the incident. All were indignant at the IAF and most grateful to the pilot, S S Kohli, whose timely action, they said, ensured their safety.

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It took airport authorities at least three hours to understand the nature of the incident, they said. “It was the pilot who announced that some IAF helicopters had landed on the same runway from nowhere. Our life was saved due to Captain Kohli’s presence of mind,” said Satyajit, one of the passengers.


Khullar agreed: “Had it not been for Captain Kohli’s instant action, all of us would have been dead. He saved our lives. I thank him again.”

Soch and Anata, two disabled sisters from Israel, felt the three hours they were made to sit inside the plane after the incident were “quite unfair”. “This does not happen in Israel. We just kept sitting inside the grounded airplane for three hours before changing. It is difficult to understand why,” Anata said

It was an agonising wait for Anshul Dhar too. “I had travelled from Dubai to Delhi via a connecting flight from Mumbai. My father is in hospital. We started from Dubai at 10 pm last night and I insisted on this 9 am flight when I had the choice of taking the 10 am flight. Now we got delayed by over four hours,” Dhar said.

Scariest moments of my life, says pilot
Saurabh Sinha | TNN

New Delhi: They were the scariest 30 seconds of his life. But by the time these tense moments had passed, Captain Sukhinder Singh Kohli, the low-profile commander of IC-866, had become the latest hero of Indian aviation, saving 170 lives with his timely action in Mumbai on Monday.

Indeed, 30 seconds of deft manoeuvring converted a potential tragedy into just a close shave. The Airbus A-321 Kohli was flying had reached a speed of 245.7kmph and was just seconds away from liftoff when the 40-year-old pilot, who has spent half his life flying, suddenly saw a chopper land metres away from him on the runway.

The pilot immediately applied brakes, but at that speed he knew the plane would not stop in time to avoid a collision. So he swerved onto a rapid exitway — known as Whisky — at high speed. MUMBAI’S OWN HUDSON HERO Capt’s decision saved 170 lives

New Delhi: Luckily for everyone, the chopper on Mumbai runway was spotted when the plane was two-three seconds from achieving the speed of 262.7 kmph — which is A-321’s ‘‘decision speed’’ or V1, meaning the plane has to take off once it reaches that speed. Slamming the brakes after V1 can lead to the plane overturning or catching fire.

‘‘They were the scariest moments of my 20-year flying life,’’ admits Captain Sukhinder Singh Kohli, the Gurgaonbased examiner-cum-trainer pilot, who was returning home to his wife and two sons, aged 15 and 10.

‘‘Three years back on a Bangkok-Delhi flight, a foreign passenger had become violent and claimed to have a bomb on him. I had to make an unscheduled stop at Kolkata to offload him. But that day, I knew the passenger may not actually have the bomb. On Monday, I saw the danger right in front of me,’’ he said.

Despite the shaky experience, Captain Kohli remains exactly how his cockpit and cabin crew colleagues describe him — a no-nonsense, levelheaded and exactly-by-thebook pilot. ‘‘This is part of the job. Doing a high-speed reject is dangerous and not recommended. But we at Indian (now Air India) are trained for such situations,’’ he says.

Pilots in final stage of landing or take off use common frequency to hear ATC conversations to remain aware of
what’s happening around them. Sources said on Monday there was no such conversation heard with the helicopter pilots who suddenly emerged on the scene.

Once that happened, the cockpit of IC 866 was reverberating with ATC warnings to abort take off, a process already set in motion by Captain Kohli, who joined Indian Airlines in 1988.

Unfazed by the dramatic events, he says: ‘‘Everyday is a new experience,” looking forward to fly back home on Monday night or Tuesday morning.