A Buffalo is waiting to happen in Calcutta

As tall buildings, some with cellphone towers on their roofs, come up around the city airport, officials have whispered warnings of an aircraft crashing into an obstacle while approaching to land or just after take-off.
Late on Thursday, a Continental Express flight of Colgan Air crashed into a building near Buffalo, New York, after the pilot lost contact with the air traffic control.All 48 people on board and one person on the ground were killed as the plane went up in flames.
Fearing a similar disaster closer home, a pilot said: “While landing at Calcutta airport we see a lot of new buildings, some quite high. We have asked the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to probe the matter.”
In recent months, the ground proximity warning system of at least three aircraft preparing to land had gone off, alerting the pilots about obstacles on or near the flight paths.
The warning system is automatically activated when an aircraft is in danger of touching down on the ground, instead of the runway, or hitting an obstacle.
The finger of suspicion points at the construction boom around the airport with rules being regularly flouted under dubious circumstances.
But there is no way to ascertain why the ground warning system went off, as the safety survey by the AAI is due for more than five years at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport.
The survey, supposed to be conducted every two-three years at all airports, aims to determine whether there are obstructions on flight paths.
To add to the risk factor, the city airport is functioning without an aero standard officer, whose duty is to enforce safety norms.“Any proposal for a building within 20km of the airport has to abide by the AAI norms,” said an official.
According to aviation safety rules, only single-storey buildings can come up within two-three km of the airport. On certain stretches, there should be no construction at all.
For buildings that are not too close to the airport, the AAI sets a height limit depending on the distance from the airport, flight path angles and other factors.
14/02/09 Sanjay Mandal/The Telegraph

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Categories: Airports Feb 2009, Safety Feb 2009