Deadline for installing expensive runway tracking system flies by

Mumbai: Even as near-mishaps on the runway keep air-passengers on edge, Chhatrapati Shivaji International airport has missed its September deadline for installing an expensively acquired system to track surface movements – critical for preventing accidents. What’s worse, the warranty for this Rs 8-crore system will expire in October, sources said.
Purchased in early 2009 - soon after the 26/11 attacks – the surface movement radars (SMR) monitor every movement, whether human or vehicular, on the airport’s surface electronically.
They are useful during bad weather and at night when visual monitoring is difficult. Currently, the airport has two radars for air traffic in Santacruz and Juhu but no equipment for surface movement.
There have been at least five near-miss incidents after the SMRs were purchased early last year. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) had set a deadline of September for one of the SMRs. The entire Airport Surface Movement Ground Control System (ASMGCS) - the two SMRs, a multi-lateration transponder and auto detection system has been gathering dust since it was bought.
Mumbai Mirror had earlier reported that a team of US-based experts, here to install the ASMGCS, left after making scathing remarks about the airports’ lack of preparedness for the system.
29/09/10 Alka Shukla/Mumbai Mirror

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Categories: airports Sep 2010