Cockpit errors have been found responsible for the series of near-misses at Calcutta airport in recent months, prompting the aviation authorities to recommend a refresher course for the bungling pilots.

“The DGCA (directorate-general of civil aviation) has suggested special cockpit training as the most practical solution after probing some of the recent incidents,” H.N. Mishra, the regional air safety officer for eastern India, told Metro on Tuesday.

The latest scare came on Monday, when JetLite’s Lucknow-Calcutta flight landed on the wrong runway. Fortunately for the passengers and the crew, there was no plane on that runway when the JetLite aircraft landed.

Mishra gave air traffic control personnel the clean chit in the near-misses investigated so far. “Pilots were the culprits. We hope cockpit training will increase their alertness and lead to better co-ordination with air traffic control,” he said.

Sources said a grounded Air India pilot had already undergone training in cockpit resource management. He had steered an aircraft to the main runway of Calcutta airport when another flight of the same airline was landing on December 31.

According to sources, Monday’s incident could have been disastrous had the secondary runway been operational. “An aircraft about to take off is often asked to wait on the secondary runway while another lands on the main runway,” an official said. A radar replay will be conducted on Wednesday to find out what had led the pilot of the JetLite aircraft to land on the secondary runway.

On December 1, a SpiceJet flight from Bangalore had landed on the main runway instead of the secondary one. Men and machine were at work on the main runway when the plane touched down metres away.