An ATC official told Arab News that the incident occurred on Thursday night about 120 nautical miles west of Mumbai, and was noticed when the Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) of the Gulf Air flight GF 064 heading toward Mumbai alerted the pilot of an intruding aircraft — Saudi Arabian Airlines SV 601.

The Gulf Air flight, which had taken off from Bahrain, was descending to land in Mumbai with 180 passengers on board. The flight, a Boeing 747, was flying over the Mumbai airspace on way to Jeddah from Dhaka and had 377 passengers on board. The Saudia aircraft, the ATC official said, had deviated from its flight path and had climbed 200 feet without permission from the ATC. The pilot of the Gulf Air aircraft spotted the Saudi aircraft climbing into its airspace on his warning system.

The ATC intervened at this stage and asked the Saudia pilot to maintain its given altitude. The ATC official said that the Saudia aircraft was cruising at an altitude of 35,000 feet, when the resolution advisory (RA) system on board the aircraft went off and alerted the Saudia pilot that an aircraft was 800 feet near it vertically.

Source: Arab News