A Jet Airways flight with 134 passengers on board narrowly averted a mid-air collision today, triggering panic aboard, passengers said.
Jet Airways Flight No 9W 2280 from New Delhi to Guwahati was probably flying over Patna when it abruptly lost control, leading to chaos inside.
"First the flight abruptly turned right and then began to plummet. We thought it would crash. There was chaos and people were screaming inside," Caushik Bezboruah, chief executive officer of News Live, a satellite TV channel from Guwahati, said.
"I heard people crying, some praying on top of their voices. It was a chaotic situation for close to a minute before the pilot took control," added Bhaskar Sharma, director of News Live.
Both Bezboruah and Sharma were seated in the emergency exit row of the plane.
Soon after, the pilot announced that another plane was approaching from the opposite direction and was inside the 'safe zone'.
"The pilot said the flight's computer system automatically navigated the plane and moved away from the path of the approaching flight to avoid a mid-air collision," Bezboruah said.
The incident took place around 11.35 a.m. The Jet Airways flight landed safely in Guwahati around 1 p.m.
"No one was injured but I saw a woman with an infant frantically trying to reach her seat from the washroom when this incident took place. She didn't manage to reach her seat and instead sat on the aisle," Sharma said.
Among those aboard the plane included Assam Congress president Bhubaneswar Kalita and Congress MP Rani Narah. "God is great. We had a near brush with death," said Narah.
Jet authorities in Guwahati refused to comment on the incident saying a formal statement, if any, would be made from their head office in Mumbai.