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Hi-tech landing system gathers dust as heavy fog halts Delhi air traffic

George Iype in New Delhi

As heavy fog has virtually stalled the landing and take off of flights from New Delhi's domestic and international airports for the past seven days, a high-tech system meant to improve the landing facilities at the Indira Gandhi International airport has been lying idle for the last three years.

For the past week, thousands of Delhi-bound passengers across the country have been stranded in various airports and a number of domestic and international flights were cancelled from Delhi as unusual foggy weather made aircraft landings at the IGI airport impossible.

On Tuesday, Delhi airport was closed down and as many as 20 incoming flights to the capital were diverted to Ahmedabad, Bombay, Jaipur and Lucknow while 18 outgoing flights were suspended.

But officials at the Airports Authority of India do not blame the poor visibility conditions due to heavy fog, but the callous attitude of the civil aviation ministry and the AAI top brass that has thrown flight schedules in the country into disarray.

Three years back, the ministry gave a multi-million rupee contract to Raytheon, a aircraft instrumentation firm in the United States to install a most modern landing system at the IGI airport to help flights land and take off under foggy conditions.

While Raytheon has installed the system and conducted numerous tests on the equipment, the AAI is yet to commission the facility for the smooth landing of flights during bad weather.

AAI and the civil aviation ministry had promised to commission the new landing system after the country's worst-ever air tragedy involving a Saudi Arabian jet and a Kazakistan aircraft killed 350 people in November 1996.

Currently the IGI airport's control tower has the Category I Instrumentation Landing System, which is not considered a technically sound system to deal with heavy fog during winter months. The Category 1 equipment allows a visual range of only 800 metres and a height of 200 metres. But visibility conditions at IGI airport during winter months are said to be much below this limit.

The ILS navigation system helps the pilots position the aircraft on the desired runway path during fog and rains.

The new landing system that Raytheon has installed is a Category II system, but officials say a snag has crept into the equipment and the US firm has neither perfectly rectified nor replaced it.

Most international airports across the world are at present using Category 3 landing facility that allows pilots to land the aircraft even during zero-visibility conditions during winter or rains.

According to H S Chawla, the air traffic management general manager at the IGI airport, Raytheon is scheduled to replace and install a new equipment at the IGI airport by the end of December. "We hope the landing troubles will be solved once the new instrumentation landing system is installed at the airport," he told Rediff On The NeT.

But Directorate General of Civil Aviation officials point out that the installation and commissioning of the new landing equipment might not give any relief to the passengers from the harrowing experience during this heavy winter for one simple reason: pilots flying the domestic flights in India have not been trained to use the Category 2 Instrumentation Landing System.

Ever since Raytheon was given the contract to install the new equipment, DGCA has been planning to train the pilots to use the advanced landing system and give them certifications in this regard. "But the much-needed training programme has not taken off because the process is time-consuming and costly," says a DGCA official.

While the domestic and foreign airlines have blamed the AAI and the aviation ministry for the disruption of flight schedules, the ministry, AAI and DGCA continue passing the buck to each other on the commissioning of the new landing equipment.

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