CHENNAI: The Air Traffic Control in Chennai automated its procedures with the implementation of a Performance Based Navigation system (PBN) that will henceforth regulate the communication between the controller and a pilot, which experts claim has been the biggest safety concern.
The new system essentially creates standard routes and height limitations that aircraft have to follow while departing and landing called Standard Arrivals and Standard Departures (STAR and SID) through Area Navigation (RNAV) thereby reducing the conversations that occur between the cockpit and the controller.
Experts, however, say that efficiently functioning radar is a basic requirement for implementing this system that unfortunately does not work in Chennai where radar outages are frequent. The radar in Chennai has failed more than 70 times in the last year, one of the highest failure rates in the country and there is no standby radar either.
“Even though a controller talks lesser, he has to constantly monitor the flights which he does with the aid of the radar that shows the aircraft in the form of blips on his screen. He tells pilots to hold at a particular point if there is a landing or a take off in progress. So that kind of monitoring at close quarters is required as the aircraft are separated at minimal distances. In Chennai, there is a big question mark on the safety aspect of implementing the system,” explains a senior pilot.
If a controller is monitoring flights on his screen, and the screen goes blank, he would have no back up. New radars, official channels say, would come only by the end of 2010.
International Civil Aviation Organisation’s manual on PBN also states that, the RNAV 1 and 2-navigation specification is primarily developed for RNAV operations in a radar environment. Which essentially means that a PBN procedure based on the RNAV can be brought about only in a full radar complacent environment.
“Regular safety audits are done but very subjectively. So where is the assurance that a standardized foolproof procedure is supposed to bring with itself? Moreover these people (controllers) have been trained on an outdated simulator for three days only and will know what a PBN system is only in real time situation. That’s a huge risk as there is no trial run,” says a senior pilot.
Experts have also pointed out that the new routes that have been charted out are not optimal in any way.
“The bottomline is that there is no benefit in putting a PBN system here. For starters, there is no route optimization and hence no saving on fuel costs, there is no back up for radar failure and many routes criss-cross, posing a danger and also defeating the purpose of simultaneous departure and landing on the main and secondary runways.