E-Paper
Fog alert: Pilots can?t force landing
TWO YEARS back some airline pilots argued and got clearances to land even in poor visibility conditions at the Amausi airport much to the chagrin of Air Traffic Control officials. Not any more. The Department of Civil Aviation has now made it very clear to the Air Traffic Control officials that an aircraft should not be allowed to take off in case the metrological department expresses any doubts about worsening fog in other stations.
TWO YEARS back some airline pilots argued and got clearances to land even in poor visibility conditions at the Amausi airport much to the chagrin of Air Traffic Control (ATC) officials.
Not any more.
The Department of Civil Aviation has now made it very clear to the Air Traffic Control (ATC) officials that an aircraft should not be allowed to take off in case the metrological department expresses any doubts about worsening fog in other stations.
This is apart from instructions handed out that an aircraft already in flight should be diverted to only those stations which are in the vicinity and have better visibility conditions compared to other stations in a foggy weather. Otherwise the aircraft needs to go back immediately. But, when the nearby stations also show foggy conditions, then the pilots need not press for landing, clarified the official. Earlier, landings were allowed to the pilot after his insistence even during fog-locked conditions.
No more arguments from pilots. The Amausi airport now strictly follows the standard navigational practice of not allowing any aircraft landings in visibility conditions below 550 metres during dense fog situations.
“As a standard practice aircraft landings are strictly not allowed in fog conditions having visibility below 550 metres,” Amausi Airport Director Ravi Prakash told HT Lucknow Live.
All flight schedules depend on the metrological reports. The Instrument Landing System (ILS) operational at the Amausi airport facilitates landing of all aircraft in visibility conditions above 550 metres during fog conditions, he added.
A senior official at Air Traffic Control (ATC) official at the Amausi airport said a flight taking off from the Indira Gandhi International Airport New Delhi has sufficient fuel to get back to New Delhi just in case the metrological report indicates rising fog in Lucknow after 20 or 25 minutes of flight. “The pilot has no option but to get back to his original station as diverting them to other airports with similar fog conditions is sometimes out of question,” he said.
In case of Mumbai, flights are cancelled when there is a possibility of fog getting worse as per met predictions. Predictions hold true for short-distance flights.
But, predictions fail to work as caution for the long once. And here lies the catch, he said.
Normally, the continuous flow of metrological reports in ATC helps inform pilots about fog status immediately. In most cases, pilots on a flight about to take off in New Delhi or Mumbai are able to understand about visibility conditions getting poorer in other stations as they advance. This way the pilot is himself forewarned not to insist on any landing in poor visibility conditions in his flight path and returns back to his original station at the earliest,” the official added.
