Click to play videoNew Delhi: Last month, two planes were given take off clearance at the Delhi airport. There are no parallel runways at the airport, they converge after a mile. Both pilots had one mile — a few minutes of flying time — to take evasive action.
This happened not once, but twice in the last two months and aviation experts say both instances were more than dangerous. However, the Director General of Civil Aviation, Kanu Gohain thinks otherwise.
"The safety gates were in position. If a human error takes place at the initiation, the radar takes over and that is what had happened in this case," says he.
An aircraft takes off or lands every minute at Delhi airport, but infrastructure hasn't kept up.
There is a shortage of trained and experienced controllers. The Government hastily hired 300 Air Traffic Controllers three years ago, but they are still to cut their teeth.
According to an Airport Authority study, Delhi is still short by over 150 experienced officers. Sources at the Airports Authority say high stress is forcing errors.
Gohain says, "Every type of work has got high stress. I am also under pressure. However, the people are trained. As regards as the pressure of numbers, recently, the Airport Authority of India has inducted some trained Air Traffic Controllers and gradually we will overcome all these shortcomings."
Frighteningly, errors are sometimes caused by bad communication. Commands have to be repeated due to poor reception on some VHF radio frequencies and crucial time is lost.
Airport employees say standard operation procedures are often complicated and difficult to follow.
For example, when twin runways are used it is mandatory for the tower clearing one aircraft to get a clearance from the tower clearing the other plane. In the incidents reported, both didn't talk because of the presssure of incoming flights.
VP Spice Jet, Flight Operation, J S Dhillon says, "The infrastructure is a very limiting factor and that stresses the air traffic controller to a large extent. With the result that the taxi tracks are not what they ideally should be and they are going all over the place."
But is it really time to panic? Experts say not really. As an aircraft takes off, radar controllers track the plane. The radars at Delhi and Mumbai have systems which warn the controller when the planes are in danger.
Planes are also equipped with what's called a Traffic Collusion Avoidance System — this gives a warning when another aircraft is in the flight path.
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