Gaurav Taneja, aka Flying Beast, analyses Delhi-Srinagar IndiGo incident; claims Pakan would’ve allowed entry had pilots declared MAYDAY | Bollywood News

YouTuber Gaurav Taneja, best known as Flying Beast online, analysed the recent incident where a Srinagar-bound IndiGo flight had to navigate extreme weather conditions. The flight was denied entry into Pakani airspace due to the ongoing tensions between India and Pakan, and was left with no option but to penetrate the weather. He said in his latest YouTube video that the pilots displayed incredible poise while navigating the extreme weather conditions, but that they shouldn’t have been in the position in the first place. “Pilots are told that if there is bad weather ahead, at no cost can they penetrate that weather,” he said, adding, “On day one, pilots are told, ‘Bhai, laal rang radar pe dikhe, usme kabhi mat jaana‘.” He said that the meteorological department should’ve warned Delhi in advance, and that the aircraft shouldn’t have been dispatched in the first place.
Gaurav, who worked as a commercial pilot for a decade before turning to YouTube full-time, has analysed past aircraft incidents like this as well. In his video, he explained what options the pilots had, why they weren’t able to turn back around and return to Delhi, and why airlines need to take another look at their policies. Gaurav presented the flight-path on the screen, and with diagrams and notations, explained what the aircraft went through. “It doesn’t make sense to take a right turn, because you’d hit the Himalayas. It would be like out of the frying pan and into the fire. They could’ve also turned back around, or they could’ve decided to continue. The pilot decided to continue. I’ll explain why they couldn’t turn back, because it’s important for airlines to rethink their policies about this,” he said.
Explaining how a flight’s radar system works, he continued, “Weather patterns are colour-coded, if there is red on the radar, it means bad weather. Bad weather can shake a plane up, it can even turn a plane upside down. It can be extremely turbulent, and should be avoided at all costs. Amber zones on the radar should also be avoided. Green can be penetrated, but only if no other options are available. Even this isn’t recommended. What’s recommended is that pilots should maintain 20 nautical miles dance between the plane and weather. Even Airbus recommends this.”
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He said that the pilots could have theoretically passed the bad weather from above, but this isn’t practical. Pilots can’t gain altitude and navigate the weather from above, because in all likelihood, the cloud is 6000 ft high. “It isn’t recommended to climb 6000 ft, because this consumes a lot of fuel and takes a lot of time. It can also disrupt traffic and make things difficult for the ATC. The standard recommendation is to either take a left or right,” he said. Gaurav said that there is a catch; a plane’s radar system collects data via the size of water droplets outside. Older radar systems don’t have the capability of regering ‘ice particles, snow, sandstorms, and dry hail’. And this is likely what happened with the Delhi-Srinagar flight.

He said that it is a common misconception that flying during monsoon season is dangerous; the most dangerous time to fly, he said, is during the pre-monsoon, because this is when the weather is building. He continued, “In my experience, an aircraft returns to base only in the event of a technical fault, either in the landing gear, or the hydraulics, or the electricals. You might think that this would’ve been the easiest thing to do, but let me tell you what goes on. Flights are usually equipped to deal with diversions, meaning that they have extra fuel and such. But the pilots probably didn’t decide to turn back because they had no prior experience with a situation like this.”
He then offered his theory about why Pakan didn’t allow the aircraft into its airspace. He said that regardless of wars or conflicts, if lives are at stake and a pilot declares emergency, the flight would have been allowed to enter. But the pilots didn’t call out MAYDAY; they called out the lesser dress signal PAN PAN.  “From the information we have till now, the pilots didn’t declare an emergency; had they done so, Pakan would’ve had to allow them into their airspace. Nobody has declared an emergency due to weather. The airspace around Pathankot is controlled the Air Force; it’s called Northern Control. The pilots told Northern Control that they’d hit weather. They were told to contact Delhi, who would contact Lahore. Because Lahore is civil airport, Northern Command couldn’t contact them. The aircraft must’ve gotten in touch with Lahore in a couple of minutes, Lahore must’ve gone up the chain to ask for permission to allow the aircraft into Pakani airspace. The permission was denied,” he said.
What happened during this back-and-forth was that the pilot lost around 10-15 minutes. “The aircraft was at the threshold of the bad weather, and there was no turning back,” he concluded.Story continues below this ad
In 1999, the pilots of the hijacked IC 814 were also denied entry into Pakani airspace, but was eventually given permission when Lahore thought that the flight could crash in a crowded area. A Netflix series dramatising the hijacking was released last year. Pilot Devi Sharan told CNN, “I reached Lahore, everything was closed. Airport runway was closed. I didn’t have any choice. I didn’t have any fuel to go back to Amritsar. I had only one choice: to crash the plane.” Despite his intention to crash, Sharan decided to delay the landing after noticing people on the ground. The situation took a dramatic turn when Pakani airport authorities, realizing the imminent danger, gave the flight clearance to land just in time. “In the meantime, (Pakani airport officials) came to know we have to crash this airplane. Then they gave me runway (clearance) … I had about one and half minutes of fuel left so luckily I landed on the runway,” he said.