Ban flight of civilian planes over BARC: Experts

Mumbai: Top officials of BARC, India's premier nuclear weapon laboratory, are of the view that flights by civilian planes over the complex at Trombay should be banned in view of the current security environment.
Speaking to TOI on Wednesday, the officials requesting anonymity, said that post 9/11, the flights over BARC were banned because there were fears that planes flown by countries hostile towards India could perhaps crash into the reactors in suicide missions. They cited the examples of a hijacked Boeing 737 crashing into the Pentagon at Washington during 9/11. "Keeping this in view, the government made the area around nuclear complexes a no-flying zone,'' said a senior BARC official.
As a result of this ban in India, aircraft operating in south-bound routes had to take a slight detour after taking off from Mumbai airport. This resulted in the consumption of additional fuel. "The airlines took up the issue with the civil aviation department which in turn made a representation to BARC. We had to relax the rule,'' he said.
Pilots taking off from Mumbai airport said BARC is very close to the airfield."The aircraft, while taking off flies as close as 2,000 feet above BARC and it is above it for 2 to 3 minutes. Training flights operate at even lower altitudes over the complex,'' said a senior Air India pilot.
Mumbai's Air Traffic Control (ATC) officials confirmed that there were no restrictions over the complex.
04/12/08 Srinivas Laxman and Chinmayi Shalya/Times of India

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Dec 2008, Safety Dec 2008