New Hyderabad airport gives pilots the jitters

New Delhi: Pilots of a number of aircraft descending to land at Hyderabad's new airport at Shamshabad are having nervous moments minutes before touchdown as some airlines are yet to feed the topographical, terrain and procedure into flight-management computers (FMC) of their fleets.
As a result, the FMC 'feels' that the aircraft is descending at an unknown place and starts belting out ground proximity warning, saying: "Terrain, terrain, pull up. Too low".
Most Indian pilots, who are well versed with the region's topography and know that the 15-20 mile radius of Shamshabad is flat land, switch off this "terrain nuisance warning" and continue their descend.
The FMC's "terrain awareness and warning system" keeps a watch on the terrain in the approach path and warns the pilot if its calculations show it could get dangerously close to a hill at the current rate of descend.
Senior ATC officials said a number of aircraft have reported these warnings while landing at the new airport, a figure that was higher on day one on Sunday and reduced on Monday.
Asked about these warnings in Shamshabad, A senior commander also said most experienced Indian pilots know this is a "terrain nuisance warning" but foreign airlines are natural to take note of it. Something that may explain KLM's decision to divert its Ahmedabad-Hyderabad flight first to Delhi and then Mumbai on Sunday.
25/03/08 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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

Categories: Airports Mar 2008