To understand the depths of this story, about why it happened, and how it impacted the aviation sector in India, we first need to have some basic knowledge. We’ll have to understand the rules of the sky. Similar to the vehicles driven on the roads, and roads built on set paths, with the road divided into traffic lanes. Similarly, there are set paths in the sky for airplanes. All aircraft need to follow these set paths. These paths are known as Airways.
Similar to the roads being divided into traffic lanes, airways are divided into air corridors. Imagine if there was only one traffic lane on the road for all vehicles. What would happen? There would be a high chance of an accident occurring. For the same reason, there are multiple corridors in the airports for the incoming airplanes and the leaving airplanes. So that there is a restricted scope of an accident taking place.
Apart from this, the height at which the aeroplanes fly, is called the flight level. According to the Internation Civil Aviation Organisation’s standards, the flight level between 2 planes, there should be at least 1,000 ft of separation. It means that one aircraft should be, vertically, at least 1,000 away from another. Apart from this, there needs to be a 14 km radius for safety. These are the basic rules of the game. And we come to the next question, who ensures that all airplanes follow the rules at all times?
