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It Happens Only in India

Runways to hell?

By: Karthik :+: Under: It Happens Only in India, Opinion
On: ⋅ July 24, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
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This could be an Indian airport.
Photo from mke1963

Sometime last week, I had a post up about how rain drenched Indian airports are coming under the microscope for their lack of space after the Brazil crash.

New details now emerge on how bad the situation is even in broad day light.

I thought the days of crossing fingers and praying that everything goes well ended with the Wright brothers, but apparently not in New Delhi.

For instance, each time simultaneous operations are on at IGI Airport and planes have to take off towards Dwarka, both the pilots and the ATC keep their fingers firmly crossed.

In the last few months, “procedural lapses” saw planes being allowed to take off within seconds of each other towards Dwarka. Since the runways converge, the planes found themselves climbing dangerously on a collision course. Only frantic last-minute communication exhorting them to take separate courses saved the day.

Now that alone will ensure that Delhi will never be on my to-fly-to list and procedural lapses? Seriously? In Delhi?

And if you thought other airports were safer, you have to read this.

The country’s busiest airport, Mumbai, also has its share of hazards. According to International Air Transport Association (IATA), the “control tower is an obstruction to the safety surfaces” of the secondary runway.

IATA points out that villagers have breached airport boundary walls at some airports so that their cattle can graze on the green spaces around airstrips. This incursion on the runways poses a serious threat to planes.

Awesome, so besides short runways, mid air collisions, now pilots have to be aware of controls towers and cattle on the run way. Did India think that all pilots were related to the Mario Bros.?

Now I guess the only alternative I have is to fly deep into the South, about which I do not have any details at this point, or take a boat. Would that make be a FOB in India?

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