Technical snag at Tvm airport ATC raises concern

Arjun Raghunath
The New Indian Express
12 Feb 2011

THIRUVANATHAPURAM: Technical snags are not new to the ATC at Thiruvananthapuram airport.

In December, when Congress president Sonia Gandhi came to the state capital to pay homage to former Chief Minister K Karunakaran, her flight had to be delayed for 17 minutes on account of a technical snag at the ATC.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) headquarters had even sought an explanation from the ATC on the matter, highly placed sources in the AAI told Express.

According to sources, over the last few years, officials with the Thiruvananthapuram ATC had given repeated requests to the higher-ups pointing out the need to replace the existing system that has become outdated.

However, there has been no response yet even after the ATCs in other parts of the country were supplied with modern equipment.

Director-General of Civil Aviation E K Bharathbhusan said he would look into the matter immediately.

“So far, the issue has not come to my attention.

ATC is a very important area in aviation, and we often ensure that modern systems are in place at the ATCs,” he told Express over phone.

In June last, a Jet Airways flight from Thiruvananthapuram to Chennai had narrowly missed a collision with an Air India Chennai-Madurai flight by around 10 nautical miles after the two aircraft had fallen on a grey area of the radar.

A timely instruction from the ATC helped avert a major mid-air collision.

The repetition of such incidents has not prompted the authorities in updating the systems in the Thiruvananthapuram ATC, that covers 200 nautical miles.

The existing systems in the Thiruvananthapuram ATC were installed way back in 1994.

Most of the equipment here have become outdated and are beyond repair.

Though a new air traffic control tower has been planned for the Thiruvananthapuram airport, it is still remaining on paper.

Besides hese, the Thiruvananthapuram ATC is also suffering from manpower shortage, sources say.