Airliners-India.com

threekay76

Y'day it was a nice situation(not so nice if you were an ATC) at MAA. The Primary Radar was scheduled for maintenance. The backup Secondary Radar also decided to take a break at abt 4 PM. ATC was left with no option but to follow Visual Procedures for Traffic control. A total of 16 flights were supposedly affected(14 arrivals 2 departures to be precise). The New Indian Express newspaper had interestingly described the situation as " The ATC had to rely upon Pilot Radio Communication to estimate the speed and altitude. everything was left to the concentration abilities of the Air Traffic Controllers" .The situation was set right at abt 9 PM last evening. The 4- 9 PM slot is one of the peak slots in MAA Area.

Nimish · Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 11:18 am Post subject:

Wow - sounds like a great deal of stress amongst the ATC community yesterday. Not to forget lots of fuel probably wasted!

But the good news is that we were able to manage a major airport with the radars being down!

lambuhere1 · Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 11:45 am Post subject:

Dont we have any redundancy built in Radar Maintainace schedule and its operation ?

Hope the natural elements does not effect the "concentration" of ATC personnel.

Ram P

HAWK21M · Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 2:54 pm Post subject:

Very rare to have both Radars suffering downtime.Glad the ATC did what they are trained for.
regds
MEL
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Think of the Brighter side !!!

haree · Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 3:46 pm Post subject:

lambuhere1 · Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 4:14 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the confirmation. Great to hear that.

Cheers to ATC personnel abt their great work

Ram P

airbus330 · Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 5:00 pm Post subject:

its really surprising to knw that both radar systems were down simultaneously,,,as it is job of an atc is full of stress, anyways it feels good to know that we can handle a major base in such conditions ..it shows the seriousness among the people associated with the training for atc professionals..
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A330

threekay76 · Posted: Thu May 17, 2007 10:38 am Post subject: AAI Clarifies rather makes up

There is a clear conflict between what the Regional Exec Director claims and sources at the airport

No radar failure, it was only a shutdown: AAI
Thursday May 17 2007 08:20 IST
CHENNAI: The Airports Authority of India (AAI) on Wednesday said that Tuesday’s radar failure between 4 pm and 9 pm was indeed an ‘‘organised shutdown’’ that was ‘‘carried out during lean period of the traffic’’.

K Ramalingam, Regional Executive Director, AAI, in a statement, said, ‘‘The shutdown was arranged, considering the lean period of traffic and NOTAM (notice to airmen) to this effect had been already notified to the airline operators and pilots.’’

However, sources at the airport said that the ‘‘shutdown’’ time fell well within the evening peak hour of operations when 30 aircraft movements are registered daily. Morning peak hour is between 6.00 am and 8.00 am with 28 flight move ments while 40 flight movements occur at 2.00 pm.

Ramalingam said: ‘‘During the shutdown period, manual procedural system was followed to handle the traffic without any incidents. There were delays to limited number of flights, which are bound to happen in manual handling of aircraft.’’ He also said that the radars were long overdue for maintenance and the shutdown was organised after discussing with the ATC personnel for a week.

‘‘The fault was with the antenna, which was connected to the radars. We have been receiving indications of fault for the last one week. The maintenance cannot be carried out because the workmen will not be able to tolerate the heat as the antenna is located at a height.’’

Nimish · Posted: Thu May 17, 2007 2:40 pm Post subject: Re: AAI Clarifies rather makes up