BIA off radar, many flights hit

Bangalore: Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) went off the radar of air travellers for six hours on Friday morning. The primary radar equipment at the new airport’s Air Traffic Control (ATC) tower malfunctioned resulting in severe delays and forcing several incoming flights to be diverted to Chennai. The malfunction is being attributed to certain software issues with the radar equipment.
As a result, ATC personnel had to switch over to back-up instruments to control the air traffic over Bangalore air space. BIA officials said operations at the airport were affected between 5.30 am and 11.30 am. “During this time, four flights were diverted to Chennai and several other flights (departing and arriving) were delayed by 30-40 minutes,” officials said.
About 17 of Kingfisher Airlines flights were delayed by 45 minutes. The airline’s flight IT064 from Colombo was diverted to the Chennai airport. Due to this, Kingfisher’s flight from Bangalore to London was delayed by over 2 hours, as 45 passengers on-board the Colombo flight were on their way to London.
Some of the other flights diverted to Chennai include Jet Airways flight 9W411 from Mumbai and flight 9W801 from Delhi. A SpiceJet passenger, who was scheduled to arrive at 9.15 on Friday morning, said he landed an hour late.
25/04/09 Times of India

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Categories: Airports Apr 2009