New ATC at MIA meet Mangalore Air Crash CoI recommendations

MANGALORE: Mangalore International Airport (MIA) is all set to meet a recommendation of court of inquiry (CoI) in to Mangalore Air Crash – need for a new high air traffic control (ATC). With the new 25-metre high ATC ready and presently functioning in shadow mode, Airports Authority of India that manages MIA is now awaiting statutory clearances from the regulator – Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) before commissioning it.
The new ATC will enable air traffic controllers assist pilots in landing and take off operations besides keeping a hawk’s eye on the runway, roads running along its periphery as well as control the crucial runway lighting facilities. Noting that DGCA nod to commission ATC is expected latest by this month end, MIA director J T Radhakrishna told TOI that AAI hitherto operated ATC services from a makeshift security tower for the past six years.
The new ATC building constructed at a cost of Rs 20 crore, Radhakrishna explained will negate the lacunaes in the old ATC. The existing tower does not provide clear visibility of approaches beyond the old and new runways. But with the new facility, air traffic controllers will have total vision of the two runways, approaches to them as well as the parking areas. The new ATC is three times the height of the current ATC, he pointed.
With central airconditioning, the new ATC, Radhakrishna said has been provided with two lifts, rest and wash rooms for staff and other automation and communication equipments. The meteorological reporting department too will be housed in the ATC, Radhakrishna said. All auxiliary equipment needed for the ATC to function will be shifted from the existing ATC to the air traffic services complex located in a separate buildign behind the new ATC.
Aircraft operations initially were handled at the old terminal building at Bajpe on the old 1.6-km asphalt runway and air traffic tower was housed in that building. Subsequenly, the ATC operations were moved to seven-metre tower at the intersection of old and the new 2.45-km long new concrete runway in 2006 and this was put in to use on temporary basis since then. However, the COI recommendations hastened the new ATC, he pointed.