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Nimish
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Joined: 16 Dec 2006
Posts: 9757
Location: Bangalore, India
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 Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 6:00 pm Post subject: DEL ATC goes on the blink on Friday - no Radar for 5 minutes |
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From: http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1123190&pageid=2
| Quote: | For almost five tense minutes early last Friday, the entire air traffic over north India vanished from the radar controls of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. The blip threw air traffic authorities into a tizzy and heightened fears possible mishaps for a brief while.
The unacceptable lapse was the result of a faulty radar system that controls air traffic over the region, sources told DNA. malfunction sent shock waves all around as there is only one approach radar to monitor and control all air traffic movement coming into Delhi.
Radar malfunctions are a very serious business because, when the screen goes blank, air traffic controllers (ATCs) do not the location of aircraft flying into Delhi. The incident took place around 1 am when the airport handles mostly international flights. At the precise moment, four aircraft were flying in and around Delhi airspace, sources said.
Sources said the “approach radar” screen went off in the control tower and, for around five minutes, all aircraft were on own while flying in and around Delhi airspace.
The Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has been informed of the radar failure and the Airports Authority of India (has initiated an internal investigation, sources said “The radar failure has been reported, and a probe has been ordered to out the exact cause that led the radar to pack up,” a senior AAI official told DNA on condition of anonymity. For ATCs, the radar failure was no less than a midnight nightmare. “It was truly a frightening sight when the radar screen showed the message that it is shutting down the system, and the screen, in a fraction of a second, just went blank,” said senior ATC official.
The locations of aircraft shown in the approach radar help controllers to decide on the degree of horizontal separation between two aircraft, the alignment of aircraft with the localiser of the instrument landing system (ILS) while landing on the runway, and, most importantly, in tracking rogue aircraft flying in Indian airspace.
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As the radar shut down, panic gripped the control tower. There were frantic efforts to revive the approach radar, but the weren’t successful. As crucial seconds passed, the controllers opened another “radar scope,” which is a standby support for the main approach radar. “
It took some time to configure it and, during those few minutes, everyone just prayed that nothing goes wrong in a”r,” an official. “After five minutes, the approach radar automatically switched on and started functioning normally, but its recurring faults will land all of us in great trouble,” said an airport source.
Sources told DNA that the approach radar, installed in May, 2007, seems to suffer from the problem of erratic switching on. It also reportedly has other problems, including regular, unwarranted blips. Airport sources say that the tracker on the approach radar has not been functioning properly and on the radar screen it jumps the actual location of the aircraft.
This means that there is difference in the actual position of an aircraft in the air and that shown on the radar screen. This difference in location makes it difficult to keep track of aircraft in the region.
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haree
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Joined: 13 Feb 2007
Posts: 429
Location: Somewhere on the globe
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| Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 6:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Code: | | Radar malfunctions are a very serious business because, when the screen goes blank, air traffic controllers (ATCs) do not the location of aircraft flying into Delhi. |
Another example of sensational journalism.. If an ATCo doesnt know where the aircraft is flying when the radar goes on the blink , well.... he/she is not an ATCo at all and what they are doing is not air traffic controlling!!
And contrary to popular belief Delhi controllers are not paan chewing hypocrites who delays Jet for IC arrivals... They were the most professional team I've met compared to other major ports (except MAA)
Haree
http://www.atcguild.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=394 for reference |
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HAWK21M
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Joined: 19 Dec 2006
Posts: 8132
Location: Mumbai, INDIA
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| Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 3:36 pm Post subject: |
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Where is the question of panic as reported.The Standby backup is present for this very kind of event 
regds
MEL
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Nimish
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Joined: 16 Dec 2006
Posts: 9757
Location: Bangalore, India
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| Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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| HAWK21M wrote: | Where is the question of panic as reported.The Standby backup is present for this very kind of event
regds
MEL |
You've probably not read the article Mel.
The main radar went down totally unexpectedly, and it took them about 5 minutes to start up the standby. 5 minutes is a long time when flying at 1000 km/h! |
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HAWK21M
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Joined: 19 Dec 2006
Posts: 8132
Location: Mumbai, INDIA
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| Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Nimish wrote: | | HAWK21M wrote: | Where is the question of panic as reported.The Standby backup is present for this very kind of event
regds
MEL |
You've probably not read the article Mel.
The main radar went down totally unexpectedly, and it took them about 5 minutes to start up the standby. 5 minutes is a long time when flying at 1000 km/h! |
I find it difficult to believe that the Standby system did not switch on Automatically.Isn't it inbuild with T/D to do so.
And regular check on the system ensures that backup exists.
If the Standby had gone u/s,it would have been annunciated as soon as that occured even in standby mode.
Something is not right.
regds
MEL
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Nimish
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Joined: 16 Dec 2006
Posts: 9757
Location: Bangalore, India
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| Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 5:46 pm Post subject: |
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| HAWK21M wrote: | Something is not right.
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That answers your original question - this was probably the reason for the panic. |
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victor2alpha
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Joined: 08 Apr 2007
Posts: 120
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| Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 8:15 pm Post subject: |
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Dont they note the same on the plates? They have those plates on which they note right? Seen it on TV..
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haree
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Joined: 13 Feb 2007
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Location: Somewhere on the globe
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| Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 11:58 am Post subject: |
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| victor2alpha wrote: | | Dont they note the same on the plates? They have those plates on which they note right? Seen it on TV.. |
Yes they have their flight strips and brains as a back up .. Quoting once more
| Quote: | | If an ATCo doesnt know where the aircraft is flying when the radar goes on the blink , well.... he/she is not an ATCo at all and what they are doing is not air traffic controlling!! |
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stealthpilot
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Joined: 19 Dec 2006
Posts: 2325
Location: BLR, DXB
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| Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 3:21 pm Post subject: |
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| victor2alpha wrote: | | Dont they note the same on the plates? They have those plates on which they note right? Seen it on TV.. |
The flight strips I have seen just had the airline + flight number, altitude, aircraft type and maybe destination. It doesn’t give you any positional data and nothing can effectively substitute real time position data.
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Boeing7xx
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Joined: 23 Dec 2006
Posts: 477
Location: WSSS
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| Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 2:21 am Post subject: |
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I second what Haree has to say. DEL ATC guys are wonderful people to talk to, and the Chennai ATC needs to be really straightened up, considering the amount of attitude they throw around, its a pain to fly in or out of MAA everytime.
BOM ATC has this mallu sounding guy usually on Approach/Departure who's really nice and keeps calling us "Zingapour Year", he's been by the far the best guy with sequencing and bringing flights in, when he's around i have rarely seen a queue to come in. He does this really nice thing of clearing you to cruise real quick. |
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Nimish
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Joined: 16 Dec 2006
Posts: 9757
Location: Bangalore, India
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| Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 10:17 am Post subject: |
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| Boeing7xx wrote: | I second what Haree has to say. DEL ATC guys are wonderful people to talk to, and the Chennai ATC needs to be really straightened up, considering the amount of attitude they throw around, its a pain to fly in or out of MAA everytime.
BOM ATC has this mallu sounding guy usually on Approach/Departure who's really nice and keeps calling us "Zingapour Year", he's been by the far the best guy with sequencing and bringing flights in, when he's around i have rarely seen a queue to come in. He does this really nice thing of clearing you to cruise real quick. |
Thanks Boeing7xx for the first hand updates! |
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