Airports: India
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Naming airports after politicians resented
The Times of India Jan 09 2016
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
In an unexpected move, some state governments have recommended doing away with the system of naming new airports after individuals, a proposal that is being considered by the civil aviation ministry .
“The proposal has come from some of the state governments but a final decision is yet to be taken. It will, however, not result in a change of name for any of existing airports,“ minister of state for civil aviation Mahesh Sharma told TOI.
Naming airports and other facilities after politicians has been a trend in the country and often triggered controversy . Recently , there was a row over naming the Bengaluru airport with some violent protests demanding that the facility be named after Tipu Sultan instead of calling it Kempegowda International Airport. While the suggestion had come from theatre and film personality Girish Karnad, it later turned into a major controversy.
Similarly , at the Hyderabad airport the domestic terminal named as NT Rama Rao, the film star-turned politician soon after TDP nominee Ashok Gajapathi Raju took charge as aviation minister in the Narendra Modi government.
Several airports across the country are named after politicians or freedom fighters, a practice that even the highly-politicised railways does not follow.
Runways, tricky
Srinagar, Leh, Port Blair, Kozhikode, Lakshadweep
Mangalore among six ‘tricky’ strips ON GROUND & IN AIR: FLYING INTO DISASTER
Anshul Dhamija | TNN
DANGER ZONES
Srinagar Leh Port Blair Kozhikode Lakshadweep
Mangalore: Mangalore’s Bajpe is a ‘special’ airport. Perched on a hillock, its runway is built on a flat stretch of land. Both ends of the runway, which has a mere 90-metre safety area against the 300-metre norm, slope downwards. That makes it tricky for pilots.
If a pilot misjudges landing or take-off, the aircraft will overshoot the runway and go downhill. That is what seems to have happened on Saturday.
Besides Mangalore, there are several other airports that come with a ‘special tag’ due to peculiarities and complexities involved in the landing and take-off procedures. Typically, airports located in hilly and mountainous regions, and those adjacent to water bodies like rivers and seas are classified as ‘special’. They include airports at Srinagar, Leh, Port Blair, Kozhikode and Agatti (Lakshadweep). The Vizag airport used to be on this list until a new airport was built.
“The runways at the airports in Leh and Port Blair are unidirectional, which means aircraft can only land and take off in one direction irrespective of the direction of the wind. That’s because both have mountainous terrain on one side of the runway,’’ says a former IAF pilot. Only experienced pilots can fly to special airports
Mangalore: Airports located in hilly terrain, such as Mangalore’s Bajpe and others, often get a ‘special tag’ due to complexities involved in landing and take-off. ‘‘At the Calicut airport, pilots have to keep a close watch on the hills close by. At Agatti, the runway is very small, with tall trees on one side of the airport. At Srinagar airport, the winds are of high speed and the topography mountainous,’’ says a pilot, who flies for a leading airline in India.
Only very experienced pilots and co-pilots are deployed to fly aircraft to special airports. According to airline officials, pilots operating to these airports undergo special training, and are constantly put through special checks.
Runways, tricky II
Table-tops, bird hits: Many tricky runways in India TIMES NEWS NETWORK
New Delhi: The Air India Express Boeing that crashed in Mangalore on Saturday veered off the runway after missing the landing threshold — an error that rarely causes a crash. In this case it did because of the runway’s unusual configuration. The airstrip sits on a plateau making landing a test of any pilot’s skill. But Mangalore’s Bajpe airport isn’t the only tricky one in the country and experts warn that more such disasters are waiting to happen if the burgeoning aviation sector doesn’t keep pace with safety norms.
Particularly, the Kozhikode international airport in Kerala, with its table-top runway, comes under the scanner. A flight overshot the runway recently but the pilot was able to halt the aircraft preventing a disaster.
The Kozhikode airport has a 2,860 m long runway surrounded by hillocks. There’s a valley at the end of the runway as in Mangalore. Experts have long demanded a 12,000 ft extension apart from an additional ILS. But this hasn’t materialized. ‘‘A table-top runway is the only option, given the terrain,’’ said airport director G Chandramouli.
Up north in Bihar, Mangalore is waiting to happen at Patna with only 6,330 ft of the 7,500 ft runway available for landing. Because of this, airlines don’t operate with full load, particularly in summer. Bigger aircraft just can’t operate here. A disaster here would be much worse than Mangalore because if an aircraft overshoots the runway, it will crash into human settlements. Also, the Patna-Delhi railway track lies parallel to the airport’s boundary wall.
A decade-and-half after the first international flight took off from Jaipur, the city’s Sanganer airport continues to operate on International Civil Aviation Organization’s provisional licence due to non-compliance with norms. The organization is concerned about the airport’s proximity to residential areas.
Chandigarh international airport lacks adequate facilities and falls short of safety norms with no night landing facility. Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel international airport, with 80 flights and an average of 5,475 passengers daily, is one of the busiest in the country. It reports the highest bird hits in the country mainly due to slums and the vegetation around it, forcing the authorities to install laser guns to scare away birds. In 2009, it reported 24 bird hits. Along with bird hits, Nagpur airport has often been in the news for ‘‘animal hits’’ due to its proximity with monkey and deer habitat.
Potential Disasters?
Kozhikode International Airport Patna Airport Sanganer Airport, Jaipur Chandigarh International Airport Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, Ahmedabad Nagpur Airport
Chamundi Hills, in the vicinity of Mysore airport, is not in the aircraft’s approach path, but concerns have cropped up now
Runways, tricky III Patna and Jammu
Patna and Jammu runways most critical: Aviation min Saurabh Sinha | TNN
New Delhi: Patna and Jammu, both nightmarish landing strips for pilots, have emerged as the most critical among 11 airports in an evaluation by the aviation ministry in the aftermath of the Mangalore crash last month. The runway in both these busy airports is shorter than Mangalore’s (8,000ft), with no room for error or emergency.
The Patna strip runway is so constrained that authorities fear a Mangalore-like situation could mean the plane breaching the boundary wall and ramming a train as a railway line is just beyond the 6,000ft runway. The aviation ministry is set to ask the Bihar government to act fast on its advice to shift the airport.
Jammu has a longer runway, at 6,700 feet, but aircraft have to apply screeching brakes as they negotiate a sharp turn on approach. A longer turn could mean entering Pakistani airspace just 6 nautical miles away.
Even Riskier Than Mangalore?
Patna’s runway is just 6,000ft long (Mangalore was 8,000ft long). Tall trees of a botanical garden on one side and a railway line where the runway ends. No scope to extend runway Jammu runway is 6,700ft long. Difficult, sharp-turn approach to runway means planes have to apply screeching brakes on landing
Armed forces opposed to extending Jammu runway to 8,000ft Politics roadblock to alternative airport at Patna?
New Delhi: Post-Mangalore crash, the aviation ministry has identified 11 airports where the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had sent teams for inspection as critical. These airports are: Leh, Kullu, Shimla, Port Blair, Agartala, Lengpui, Calicut, Mangalore, Latur, Jammu and Patna — the last two the most critical.
Most of these airports are situated in difficult terrain where extending the runway is next to impossible. In Kullu, for instance, the river Beas flows on both ends of the runway. The only way to extend the airstrip is to build a bridge on the river and link it to the airstrip.
Almost a week after the list was prepared for priority inspection, a top official said: “In other places, certain safety augmentation measures can be taken but those two cities don’t offer much scope. Patna airport has a botanical garden with high trees on approach and a railway line on the other end of runway. Trees can’t be cut and the railway line can’t be shifted. As a result, planes have to land in the 6,000-feet available with no room for error. The state government has been asked to shift the Patna airport for a while now.”
The site identified for the alternate airport is Bitah, an existing defence airport that sees one or two flights a week.
Sources said the state’s delay in shifting the airport is due to political considerations — a section of the ruling party is known to favour a top state leader’s constituency as the location for the new airport.
Small airports: Poor visibility
Poor visibility at small airports a worry
V Ayyappan | TNN
Chennai: Though visibility is a crucial factor for pilots to make a safe landing, most of the small airports in the south do not have modern equipment to measure runway visibility and feed it to the air traffic control system.
With rains round the corner in the west coast, accurate information about the extent of visibility at airports in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Kozhikode, Mangalore and Coimbatore is vital for pilots.
At the Chennai airport that handles up to 400 flights every day, there is only one transmissometer — used to gauge runway visibility range (RVR) — installed near the touchdown point at the Pallavaram end of the main (07) runway. The other end of the runway does not have the equipment.
‘‘A transmissometer would have helped the pilot of the ill-fated Air India Express flight at Mangalore. Readings of dew point and temperatures were indicating that air was less dense, which means the aircraft may have needed more landing run, said V Krishnan, a former office-bearer of Air Traffic Controllers Guild.
International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) recommends RVR for runways served by Instrument Landing System (ILS). And almost all airports have ILS, still they do not have transmissometers, he added.
The meteorological department has chosen to install the equipment at airports where they have a forecasting office instead of looking at the requirement of pilots. Here too, only one end of the runway has transmissometers.
When transmissometers are not installed, the Met department issue does a manual calculation by measuring the lowest distance from where an object could be spotted at a 360 degree angle.
Though plans to install more such transmissometres were drawn up two years ago, fund crunch had slowed down the installation. Met department hopes that the Mangalore disaster would speed up the process.
