Sunday, July 19, 2009

Radar blackout in Kolkata skies

Kolkata: It is no Bermuda Triangle, but increasing incidents of flights “disappearing” from the Air Traffic Control (ATC) radar at the NSC Bose airport in the city are raising serious safety concerns for passengers and crew.
A Kolkata-Bangalore JetLite aircraft with 51 persons on board disappeared from the radar around 7.15 p.m. after taking off at 6 p.m. yesterday. Last Sunday night, a Singapore Airlines flight from Milan had briefly disappeared from the Kolkata radar.
Frequent failure of instruments for monitoring flights was the reason for both incidents. The radar signature of the Jetlite aircraft disappeared while the plane was over the Bay of Bengal, apparently because of the sudden failure of a radar at Berhampur in Orissa.
The ATC officials however maintained contact with the pilot through Very High Frequency Radio Telephony, High Frequency Radio Telephony and other means till the flight landed in Bangalore.
A senior official of Airports Authority of India (National Airports Division) here said such incidents were a matter of concern. The Automatic Dependence System (ADS) at Kolkata was also inoperative from 5-12 July.
18/07/09 Sasi Mukherjee/The Statesman
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