Fresh turbulence at Bajpe, officials ignore warnings

Mangalore: If you glimpse the foothils of Bajpe hill, where Bajpe Airport is perched, you will smell danger. Mining is causing fresh turbulence.
DNA had reported on August 23 that the airport’s runway could cave in. Chairman of the court of inquiry into the May 22 air crash, Air Marshal (retd) B Neelkanth Gokhale, had said the issue would be taken up with the chief secretary of Karnataka or even with the Centre, and requested Airports Authority of India’s (AAI’s) top brass to despatch an assessment team to Bajpe.
But nothing has been done so far. Instead, senior AAI officials say: “How can a runway ‘cave in’ just because the airport is at a tabletop?...How can anybody suggest any danger to the runway?” DNA had also published these comments.
But experts have now confirmed to DNA that danger lurks beneath, because mining is peeling away iron- and aluminium-rich laterite layers which strengthen the surface on which Bajpe Airport's runway sits.
09/09/10 M Raghuram/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: airports Sep 2010, Safety Sep 2010