Half-hour panic in city skies, 7 planes lose contact with ATC

Kolkata: It was a nerve-wracking 30 minutes at Kolkata airport on Tuesday morning after a freak snag in the critical communication system severed all contacts with as many as seven flights that were converging for landing. Though ATC officials claimed they managed to get in touch with the pilots through alternative channels and asked them to hover till the snag was sorted out, sources confirmed that anything could have happened in that bizarre half hour when the seven planes became incommunicado.
All was fine till 9.55 am, when a Jet Airways aircraft on the Bangkok-Kolkata sector entered Kolkata airspace.
“The problem cropped up when the Jet Airways flight was 100 nautical miles or 185 km to the east of Kolkata. Suddenly, communication with all other planes became garbled and illegible. Planes were visible on the radar but voice communication was severed. As soon as we switched to another frequency, it got jammed. The only plane we remained in touch with was the Jet Airways craft from Bangkok. It was very peculiar. In several decades of service in the tower, I have never encountered something as strange,” one controller said.
Realizing the urgency of the situation, the airport halted all operations on the ground and went into emergency mode. Flights that were queuing up for takeoff — Air India flights to Guwahati and Dibrugarh, a Jet Airways flight to Guwahati, a Kingfisher flight to Silchar and an Air India Express flight to Singapore — were put on indefinite hold. A communication was sent to adjoining ATCs through hotline to order pilots of approaching aircraft to stay on hold in their given altitude.
Meanwhile, on the ground, engineers tried to identify the problem. “It was as if the Jet plane was fitted with jammers. While its communication channel remained open, that with all other aircraft was jammed,” said a technician.
Even as the engineers remained perplexed, it was decided to land the only aircraft the tower was still in touch with. And then, the miracle happened. As the Jet flight touched down at 10.20 am, the jammed frequencies opened up, restoring links with all seven aircraft in the sky.
28/01/09 Times of India

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Categories: Airports Jan 2009, Jet Airways Jan 2009, Safety Jan 2009