A dozen flights landed in low visibility last week

Mumbai: If visibility drops below 2,800 m on Tuesday, aircraft, like Boeing 737s and A320s, should not be allowed to land on the shortened runway of Mumbai airport.
Last Tuesday__which witnessed a Kingfisher flight skidding off the runway and landing on the kutcha end of the stretch and an AI plane breaking two edge lights__over a dozen flights landed on the shortened tarmac even as visibility dipped below the minimum prescribed limit.
What made the visibility norm violation even graver is the fact that the flights landed on a wet shortened runway, which had tail winds (wind blowing from the tail end towards the head of a plane) up to 10 knots, making it the perfect recipe for a disaster. On October 23, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) issued an NOTAM (notice to air men), stating that for safe operations on short runway 27 A, the minimum visibility should be at least 2,800 m. On the shortened turmac, the minimum visibility has been fixed at 2,800 m for heavier jet aircraft, like Boeing 737s, and 2,400 m for smaller ones, like an ATR.
As it rained last Tuesday, visibility fluctuated and operations at the airport were suspended only from 2.08 pm to 2.55 pm and then again from 3.07 pm to 3.44 pm, when the figure went really low. But METAR charts (meteorological weather report issued every 30 minutes for pilots with information on visibility, wind velocity, direction, cloud cover, rainfall etc) issued that day showed that apart from the above mentioned timings, visibility was way below the minimum required mark even at 4.40 pm (visibility: 2,300m), 5.10 pm and 5.40 pm (visibility: 2,400m).
17/11/09 Manju V/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Nov 2009, Safety Nov 2009