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20 Jul 2007, 0245 hrs IST ,Manju
V,TNN
MUMBAI: The monsoon this year has
caused casualties of a new kind.
There have been nine
aviation accidents or incidents at
various Indian airports in the last
three months - most of them caused
by that fatal combination of heavy
rain and short runways.
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Patna: 6,411 feet
runway. Trees on
property belonging to
Lalu Prasad’s in-laws
appear on the safety
funnel of Instrument
Landing System during
approach |
It was these two factors
that caused the Tam Airbus to crash
in Sao Paulo on Wednesday, killing
200 people.
Even veteran pilots are known to get
the monsoon jitters - flying through
heavy rain, cross winds, and an
opaque cloud cover is hard enough,
but landing in these hostile
conditions on a stingy runway that
stops short of 9,000 feet is
nerve-wracking.
With an additional 12,000 flights
this year compared with 2006, the
rise in the number of skids and
incidents is not surprising. The Sao
Paulo tragedy has raised the
question: how safe are Indian
runways?
The consensus in the aviation
industry is that the two most unsafe
airports in the country are those at
Pune and Patna. However, it's not as
if the rest are up to standard.
The fact is that most of India's
200-plus airports have landing
strips that fall short of the
9000-foot safety benchmark. During
the dry months, this does not really
make a difference - after all,
thousands of flights arrive safely
every day - but come the
thundershowers and suddenly the lack
of inches is acutely felt.
With so negligible a margin for
error, an aircraft can easily
overshoot the slippery strip of
tarmac. Even the country's so-called
long runways aren't up to scratch.
Says an A320 check pilot, "In the
Emirates Operations Manual, the
example of a bad runway is Mumbai
airport runway 27."
Singapore Airlines too does not land
on Mumbai airport's runway 14 as it
has been classified 'sub-standard'
because of the air-traffic control
tower standing a few metres away.
"Runway 14 may be 9,596 feet but it
has a displaced threshold, which
means only 7,200 feet are available
for landing. To make things worse,
the end of the runway is waterlogged
and slippery," says a senior Boeing
747 commander.
While the Airports Authority of
India operates 124 runways, state
governments own 158 and private
parties 63.
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from
this link
 Tuesday's
plane crash in Brazil in which at least 186 people were
killed has brought flight safety back into focus. And the
occurrence of half a dozen incidents at different airports
in the last two months has confirmed fears that Indian skies
are fast becoming unsafe.
The airlines insist they take enough safeguards to operate
flights as per norms set by the Director General of Civil
Aviation (DGCA) and that the fears are unfounded. But
experienced pilots and aviation experts say the mindless
growth of aviation — with no proper infrastructure and no
enforcement of laws — has grossly compromised air safety
norms.
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A study says there were nine incidents of
passenger planes skidding off runways in India —
wet in each case — after landing between May 1
and July 1, report Sidhartha Roy
and Soubhik Mitra.
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"The current state of Indian aviation is just like
Delhi's Blueline bus service. You allowed them to operate
without enforcement by the police and they killed people on
the road. You stopped them, you earned the wrath of
passengers," said a senior commander on condition of
anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to the press.
He said the current situation was a direct outcome of the
government allowing the arbitrary import of aircraft without
strengthening law enforcement agencies. "DGCA's Flight
Inspection Department (FID) is as good as defunct. Once 12
senior personnel worked here to certify aircraft, pilots and
conduct surprise checks. Once they left, only one person ran
this department for nearly two years. It is just impossible
for one flight inspector to certify and monitor over 300
aircraft," the commander said, adding that the airline lobby
had bypassed several safety norms in getting their planes
certified airworthy.
"It's a miracle we don't have mid-air crashes. The
deregulation has caused heavy congestion in the air and Air
Traffic Control (ATC) is unable to handle the pressure. Then
you have the language problem of expat pilots. The shortage
of pilots has prompted airlines to hire anybody. And with
nobody to conduct flight safety audits, you are bound to
have accidents," he added.
"The pressure is so much at the ATC tower that sometimes, it
is difficult to repeat the message. Even if 15 aircraft land
at an airport in an hour, ATCs communicate at least four
times with each of them before they finally land," said an
air traffic controller.
Within the country too, the pressure to push out pilots
has led to short cuts. Pilot trainers admit that established
norms are being violated to keep pace with demand. "Now a
19-year-old goes directly into a Boeing or Airbus cockpit
after completing 200 hours of flying training and 45 days of
a jet endorsement training programme," said Yashraj Tongia,
chief flight instructor, Yash Air Flying Institute.
Almost everybody HT spoke to opined that the DGCA
needed to be strengthened, both with more legislative
powers, and manpower to enforce flight safety norms,
including routine and surprise aircraft checks.
from
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