Did Kolkata air traffic control lose contact with 85 flights carrying 25,000 passengers?

A communication breakdown between Kolkata's air traffic control room and 85 flights put the lives of nearly 25,000 fliers in danger on Thursday. The fiasco lasted for 10 minutes, according to NDTV.com. Multiple radars and vital VHF radio link failure continued for 1 hour 40 minutes, as 35 controllers scrambled for mobile phones to contact nearby ATCS to alter flight levels of aircrafts.

A controller was quoted saying: "What happened is a controller's nightmare. Even landlines were not working. But, we managed to contact Nagpur and Varanasi ATC to relay information to pilots," a controller said. The DGCA and AAI have ordered a probe into the incident which started at 7:35 AM. 

According to TOI, of these 85 planes, 30 planes weren’t reachable at all and controllers also lost touch wither counterparts in Dhaka and Myanmar.

In another report on CNN-IBN, the AAI said that the information is not correct and they were prepared to handle the situation.  

"This information is not correct and there was no safety issue at all. It was technical issue and generally the ATC is prepared to handle such technical failures. The link failure resulted in data loss from certain radars. For approximately a radius of 400 kms around Kolkata there was no link failure and that's good enough for us," said Sanjay Jain, Regional Executive Director, Eastern Region, AAI, told CNN-IBN.