A series of life-threatening incidents recently reported from the Delhi airport has prompted calls for an immediate requirement of revamp in the Capital’s existing Air Traffic Control (ATC) infrastructure. DNA has accessed a letter from the ATC guild to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), warning that, “Not heeding to the repeated requests for airspace and ground infrastructure revamp in time may cause a replay of 1996 Charkhi-Dadri crash,” which claimed 349 lives. The letter came at the time when the new ATC, on which about Rs 200 crore has already been spent, stands incomplete, regardless of having violated a number of deadlines in more than three year’s time.
Dated January 30, 2017, the letter reads, “In 1996, Charkhi-Dadri crash happened over Delhi airspace due to not heeding to the guild’s repeated requests for airspace and ground infrastructure revamp in time. It is also worth to mention, at that time the guild was pursuing hard for procurement of Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) to manage the traffic in busy and complex airspace in Delhi but the suggestions were not heeded on time.”
“This resulted in one of the worst disasters in the Indian sky. It is high time that proactive measures be taken at the earliest to avoid any repetition of the same.”
The guild said that exactly the same scenario is developing over the Delhi airspace for not heeding to their repeated suggestions.
“Sluggishness is observed during heavy traffic situations either in bad weather conditions or just after an airspace closure ends. Such sluggishness is bound to lead to major incident if the same is not addressed on priority. Since two years now, the ATC Guild (India) has been crying hoarse for a solution… nothing has been done to address the problem. Everyone in the ATM management is aware of this, but they are deliberately shutting their eyes and ears,” the letter read.
An officer from the AAI told DNA that the new ATC tower is being built at the Delhi airport, which is expected to address all our concerns. “There have been some issues and the project has been delayed. Many deadlines have been crossed. Since we cannot compromise on the safety, installation of the best of the instruments is taking time. Completion of the tower and handing it over to the AAI also took extra time,” the officer said.
Handling of increased traffic has also taking a big toll on the controllers’ health. In recent times, three “good radar controllers have suffered heart attacks, may be due to high stress,” the letter stated.
Quoting recent scares, the guild claimed that on January 19, 2017 almost all the workstations became very sluggish subsequent to a scheduled airspace closure for rehearsal of the Republic Day parade. “For a significant time, the system was not taking any input and the Human Machine Interface (HMI) was almost frozen. Subsequently, on the same night complete radar system was restarted to refresh the system in the hope that the problem faced earlier in the day will be resolved. But again on January 20 and on Republic Day, same problems were experienced,” it said.
THE PROBLEM
- Tools available to the controllers are poorly maintained
- Increased traffic takes a heavy toll on controllers’ health
SOLUTIONS
- Upgrade existing hardware and software systems
- Restrict air traffic to a manageable level in Delhi airspace
RECENT SCARES
- February 1, 2017 - Two aircraft entered the same taxiway at IGI airport and had a narrow escape
- January, 19, 2017 - almost all the workstations became sluggish requiring restarting of the system
- January, 20, 2017 - same problems were experienced during heavy traffic right after airspace closure
- December 26, 2016 - two aircraft came face to face at the IGI near runway due to miscommunication between ATC and pilot
- October, 4, 2016 - the system was behaving erratic creating panic and chaos
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