Kolkata: The city's most-hyped Durga Puja pandal, a replica of Dubai's iconic skyscraper Burj Khalifa created at Sreebhumi, Lake Town, has suspended a spectacular laser show that had emerged as a show stopper.
The decision to suspend the show came several hours after multiple complaints by airline pilots on Monday evening about the laser lights intruding their cockpits while they were approaching Kolkata airport to land. Civil aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) mandates an 18.5 km radius exclusion zone for laser lights around airports to prevent pilots getting blinded by laser beams during the crucial landing phase. The Puja pandal at Sreebhumi is barely 8.5km from the runway and next to the aircraft approach funnel.
The organisers of the Puja helmed by state fire minister Sujit Bose claimed they had voluntarily shut the laser display on the 145-ft pandal to control the crowds. Doctors and local residents had expressed fears of the area turning into a Covid zone with lakhs crowding the narrow lanes that lead to the pandal.
“We decided to suspend the laser show as revellers were refusing to move on and were recording it on their cellphones. As a result, crowd control was becoming a challenge. The tail of the crowd was spilling on to the main road and creating a traffic bottleneck there. We don't want people to get infected or sick while coming to enjoy the festival,” said Dibyendu Goswami, the chief coordinator of the puja committee.
Sources in the airport said pilots of at least four flights had complained of laser lights that can momentarily blind the pilots' vision in the cockpit. While three complaints were made by pilots over the VHF radio set to the air traffic control that was duly reported to the Airport Operations Command Centre, another pilot was so angry about the laser that he made a written complaint to the Airports Authority of India. The first three complaints came between 6.30pm and 7pm. The fourth complaint was made a little later.
"From Monday, the wind direction changed leading to pilots approaching the runway from Rajarhat to the south of the airport. When they complained of laser beams, the flights were at an altitude of 1,500-1,800 ft and descending fast to touch down in less than 5 minutes. Any intrusion at this juncture is not only irritating, it is hazardous as well," explained an official.
12/10/21 Tamaghna Banerjee & Subhro Niyogi/Times of India
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