Late flights: Fog clears, blame game begins

New Delhi/Mumbai: The fog cleared on Sunday morning, bringing relief to officials and passengers at the Delhi airport, but it left behind a backlog of delayed flights, and a question that forever begs an explanation.
Why does this happen year after year?
Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport is the only airport in the country to have two runways equipped with CAT III-B Instrument Landing System – a technology that guides pilots to land even when visibility is cut to 50 metres.
However, it failed on Saturday, when the season’s first spell of dense fog engulfed Delhi. Nearly 200 flights were either delayed and diverted, or cancelled, stranding thousands of passengers.
“The airport operator will have to give an explanation as to how this happened,” said Kapil Kaul, India head of global aviation consultancy Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation. "This is something that needs to be looked at seriously.".
Finding an explanation won't be easy, however. Because the issue involves multiple stakeholders and a web of unclear briefs.
The overarching responsibility of maintaining the Instrument Landing System rests with the Airports Authority of India, but its key components are managed by the Meteorology Department and Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), which operates the airport.
The Directorate General Civil Aviation pointed finger at the Met Department, which looks after the Runway Visual Range (RVR) measuring machines that update air traffic controller on visibility conditions. These machines did not work on either of the runways.
There are seven such machines at the airport, all connected to a common server through cables. DGCA officials said even the cables were damaged by ongoing digging work near the runway, and that could be a lapse on the part of DIAL.
DIAL did not comment on the allegations.
04/01/10 Sidhartha Roy and Lalatendu Mishra/Hindustan Times

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Categories: Airports Jan 2010