Sonia scare: IAF scrambles to upgrade its 3 VIP planes

New Delhi: The special IAF plane flying Congress president Sonia Gandhi from Srinagar to Delhi last week may not have been in any major danger of a mid-air collision but the “procedural lapse” has exposed something that was being glossed over for the past few years.
The three Boeing-737 VVIP aircraft of the IAF are the only planes not equipped to operate according to RVSM (Reduced Vertical Separation Minima) standards — an internationally accepted norm that all passenger aircraft in the country meet to operate on congested air routes.
Compliance to these norms allows aircraft flying at over 29,000 feet to safely reduce the vertical distance between each other from 2,000 feet to 1,000 feet. But this requires replacing some old equipment like altimeters with new RVSM-compliant models.
the IAF has now hurriedly moved to fit its Boeing-737s with RVSM-compliant equipment.
It’s learnt that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) conveyed to the IAF the urgency to make the three Boeings RVSM-compliant for the sake of uniformity.As all aircraft flying in the country are RVSM-compliant, it is easy for an ATC to miss the “special status” of the VVIP flights and put vertical separation as the standard 1,000 feet.
20/09/07 Indian Express

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: Foreign Sep 2007, Safety Sep 2007