President Pratibha Patil’s plane off radar

Calcutta: President Pratibha Patil’s flight to Aizawl went off Calcutta airport’s west radar for five minutes shortly after take-off on Thursday, leaving air traffic control in a tizzy until the aircraft reappeared on the east radar.
Officials manning the ATC tower said the west radar “tripped” after the Indian Air Force aircraft carrying the President and husband Devisingh Shekhawat to the Mizoram capital had travelled barely seven nautical miles.
“The aircraft took off at 10.57am and the west radar tripped around 11.07am. It took us five minutes to connect the flight to the east radar, during which time the plane was off the radar,” said a senior official.
Experts from the communication navigation surveillance department, however, insisted that the problem arose because the ATC official monitoring the west radar had mistakenly logged out.
An ATC spokesperson said the communication navigation surveillance team was informed about the “malfunctioning west radar” almost immediately after personnel manning the tower lost sight of the aircraft. “The flight was in the Bagdogra airspace when we lost it on the west radar. It was transferred to the east radar even as the team of engineers fixed the problem. The feed was then re-routed to the west radar,” the official added.
24/09/10 The Telegraph

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Categories: airports Sep 2010, Safety Sep 2010