New Delhi, July 9 Eight air accidents have taken place in the last one-and-half year due to human error and nine"serious incidents"involving aircraft have been reported to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in the same period, the government said today.

" There have been eight air accidents due to human error since January 1, 2008 till date. Nine incidents have been reported to the DGCA for the same period, which have been treated as serious incidents," Minister of State for Civil Aviation Praful Patel said while replying to a a query in Lok Sabha.

On an incident involving Jet Airways and Air India aircraft on May 31, 2009, the Minister said that the DGCA inquiry into the incident found that the take-off clearance for the Jet Airways flight was misconstrued by the Air India pilot as clearance for his flight and it initiated take-off roll simultaneously.

"The Air India crew for the flight was grounded and advised not to exercise privilege of license for a period of one month," Patel said.