Flights to and from Northeast fumble in blind zone

Flights to and from Northeast fumble in blind zone

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110215/jsp/calcutta/story_13584169.jspc

Flights between Calcutta and the Northeast are not only among the shortest but also short on safety, passing through stretches of airspace where pilots are caught between two air traffic control towers that aren't even on talking terms. "Around 5,000 people board flights between the city and various destinations of the Northeast every day. unaware that luck and piloting skills are their only insurance along stretches of Bangladesh and Indian airspace where communication methods are primitive and radar surveillance is non-existent," said a senior representative of a private airline. Danger No. 1 is apparently the lack of communication between the Calcutta and Dhaka control rooms despite all flights to the Northeast flying over Bangladesh airspace. Even after a pilot negotiates that stretch safely, he or she can't afford to relax. "Apart from Guwahati, no other airport in the Northeast has radar surveillance. So voice communication with the ATC is the only lifeline available to pilots," the airline official said. With Guwahati, voice communication by VHF (very high frequency) equipment is often a problem because of signal disruption caused by the hilly terrain. "When that happens, a pilot needs to contact Agartala ATC to convey a message to us, which in this day and age is ridiculous. We have been requesting Delhi to install a radar in Agartala for the last eight years but nobody's listening," said an official at Borjhar airport in Guwahati. Not for nothing does a veteran like Capt. Sarvesh Gupta of Jet Airways find flying to and from the Northeast "stressful". "Many of us have raised these safety issues at meetings of the regional operations committee. The Indian and Bangladesh authorities need to open a channel of communication to realign routes and review the communication process," said a pilot of another airline. So why do Calcutta and Dhaka ATC behave like hostile neighbours when air safety in both countries is at stake? Officials at the city airport claimed that the hotline between the two ATC units had never been used because of a manpower shortage. Worse, the radar at Dhaka airport malfunctions at regular intervals. "The voice communication frequency with Dhaka ATC is often jammed and it's quite an ordeal communicating one's aircraft position to them," said a senior pilot based in the city. On February 5, an Air India flight on the Calcutta-Imphal route was on a collision course with a China Eastern airline flight till the pilot made a last-minute adjustment in altitude. A miscommunication between one of the pilots and ATC personnel at Dhaka airport had allegedly led to the flights maintaining the same altitude. "Such near-misses have taken place on the Northeast route several times," an official said. Pilots partly blame the two-decade-old air traffic surveillance routes for the perils of flying to and from the Northeast. "The volume of traffic has increased almost five times but the systems are the same," said a Northeast veteran. Flights from Calcutta take either of two routes to the Northeast, one over Rajshahi and the other over Kumilla. Apart from the 25-odd aircraft flying between the city and Northeast destinations like Guwahati, Jorhat, Mohanbari, Agartala, Imphal, Silchar, Dimapur and Aizawl, the route is used by around 50 other aircraft. A plane taking off from the city enters Bangladesh after flying barely 30 nautical miles within the Calcutta flight information range. The aircraft then covers around 100 nautical miles before entering the Northeast, where it flies another 25 to 150 nautical miles depending on the destination. "As there is practically no communication between Calcutta and Dhaka, pilots keep them informed about their altitude, speed and other details. But there is always a chance of miscommunication and no second line of defence, especially when a flight is switching from one flight information range to another," he said.