Chennai: While a good public utility service should be prepared to meet all emergency situations including system failure, human error and natural disaster, Tuesday’s fire incident at the air traffic control (ATC) centre at Chennai airport brought to a halt the entire aircraft movement for nearly three hours inconveniencing thousands of passengers. However, experts and officials termed such incidents as beyond one’s control.
“The stakes are extremely high in aviation and one cannot take risks. So, we diverted all planes to nearby airports as per international civil aviation organisation (ICAO) norms,” said Airports Authority of India (AAI) chairman V. P. Agrawal, adding that world over, all airports follow such procedure when critical systems fail.
“Our operators in the control tower successfully managed to guide the flights that were on the gliding path to land and diverted the remaining flights to other airports for safety,” he said. When area control centre becomes non operational, it would be difficult to handle approach path, he added.
12/03/13 S. Sujatha/Deccan Chronicle
