Mumbai: Juhu airport in Mumbai is the nerve centre of helicopter and small aircraft operations in Western India. Intelligence Bureau terror alerts last year warned the airport could provide a launch pad for terror attacks on the city. But despite urgent alerts by the intelligence bureau, CNN-IBN finds glaring loopholes in security and infrastructure at the airport.
Even as the air traffic control tower, hangars and helicopters lie unsecured, rows of choppers belonging corporate sector people and VIPs are parked just beside heaps of garbage.
President, Rotaract Wing Society Captain Uday Gelli said, "Juhu airport houses the largest number of helicopters in the country. They provided the maximum support to the oil and gas industry. So today if someone wants to play any mischief, they can actually get inside the airport and damage the helicopter."
The airport, spread across 400 acres, sees a 150 takeoffs and landings a day. It's extensively used by offshore oil operations, and by virtually all of corporate India's top leaders. To plug these loopholes in security, the Home Ministry had sanctioned 174 CISF personnel. But despite the urgency of the IB terror alert, no new personnel have been stationed at the airport so far, the reason, a housing shortage. ...
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06:50 AM, Jun 25, 2012
Mumbai: Even as aviation authorities are making a bid to revive the Juhu aerodrome, certain officials, it appears, are taxiing in the opposite direction. MiD DAY is in possession of documents that indicate an unholy nexus between some Airports Authority of India (AAI) bigwigs and the builders lobby, endeavouring to shut down one of the runways at the aerodrome for furtherance of building projects. The records suggest the officials attempted...
01:27 PM, May 15, 2012
Mumbai: Plans by Airports Authority of India to decongest the busy Mumbai airport by moving all helicopter operations to the nearby Juhu airport have hit a roadblock. With helicopter operations as well as fixed wing operations moving here, serious questions are being raised about this airport's ability to cope with increased traffic and security considerations. The Rotary Wing Society of India says serious objections they had raised to Juhu airport... 
Crew and all five passengers were safe, airport sources said. ... 
