No significant increase in near miss incidents: Minister

The number of air miss incidents has not shown any significant increase in the last few years and a number of steps are being taken by the Government for avoiding them. This information was given by Shri Praful Patel, Minister for Civil Aviation in the Lok Sabha today.
The number of air-miss incidents per lakh movements for the last four years are 2.041 in 2003; 2.081 in 2004; 2.506 in 2005 and 2.559 in 2006. The marginal increase is due to substantial increase in Air Traffic Density in the past few years. Further, better surveillance mechanisms like installation of Airborne Collision Avoidance System/Traffic Collision Avoidance Systems on aircraft and increase in RADAR coverage are have enabled reporting and monitoring of every breach of minimum separation between flights/aircraft.
Safety of aircraft operations and avoiding air miss incidents is ensured by making installation of Airborne Collision Avoidance System (ACAS) and Mode “S” transponder on aircraft with certified seating capacity of more than 30 or pay load capacity more than 3 tones mandatory. Apart from this, Airports Authority of India (AAI) has installed Automatic Dependant Surveillance and Controller Pilot Data Link Communication (CPDLC) at Delhi and Mumbai airports. Minimum Safe Altitude Warning (MSAW) system is also in vogue which provides radar warning to ATCs, enabling them to alert the pilots timely. Most of the busy airspace in the country has been covered by Mono Pulse Secondary. Surveillance Radars (MSSRs) installed at Major airports which provide information on aircraft altitude to ATCOs.
03/05/07 Press Information Bureau (press release)

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Categories: General Aviation May 2007, Safety May 2007