Saudi 747 lands in closed section of runway
quidquid excusatio prandium pro
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: New York
Posts: 349
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Engineer
Will agree with you, reading and understanding the paperwork is essential. The dissemination of data vital to safety related aviation issues is, however, likely as antiquated as the entire system itself in India, hence my point regarding the ATIS broadcast of a potentially hazardous runway condition. It’s a long way to the next suitable after leaving Chennai airspace eastbound, would be nice to know that our Indian friends have our best interests at heart in the event of an enroute diversion.
Apropos of the subject of this thread, any incident in India, no matter how small, trivial or insignificant brings out the hordes of aviation bureaucrats, airport functionaries and other self-starting pencil pushers in droves, and invariably makes the local near-disaster headlines the next morning. And we think we have it bad with the journos here.
Will agree with you, reading and understanding the paperwork is essential. The dissemination of data vital to safety related aviation issues is, however, likely as antiquated as the entire system itself in India, hence my point regarding the ATIS broadcast of a potentially hazardous runway condition. It’s a long way to the next suitable after leaving Chennai airspace eastbound, would be nice to know that our Indian friends have our best interests at heart in the event of an enroute diversion.
Apropos of the subject of this thread, any incident in India, no matter how small, trivial or insignificant brings out the hordes of aviation bureaucrats, airport functionaries and other self-starting pencil pushers in droves, and invariably makes the local near-disaster headlines the next morning. And we think we have it bad with the journos here.
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Chennai (MAA)
Posts: 407
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
*****
Apropos of the subject of this thread, any incident in India, no matter how small, trivial or insignificant brings out the hordes of aviation bureaucrats, airport functionaries and other self-starting pencil pushers in droves, and invariably makes the local near-disaster headlines the next morning. And we think we have it bad with the journos here.
*******
Well may be if a "near disaster headline" was made of these incident, maybe someone would have been asking the question of whether anything could be done to improve things, esp since two incidents appeared to have happened one after the other. Tthe incident was hardly reported by local media.
Unfortunately Indian aviation journalism seems to be mainly confined to feeding off "offcial press releases" or quoting off airline propaganda fed to journos taken on sponsored junket!
And dont write off the aviation bureaucracy in India as totally worthless . The official regulator's site (www.dgca.nic.in) has improved by leaps and bounds over the years , and continues to improve over time. Same with the airports, and while some of the airports like BOM may still need improvement, airports like MAA and TRV (esp the domestic terminals) have become modern comfortable ones which are a pleasure to use. And airport security despite all the horror stories many people (esp those who have never flown in India recently) think, are polite and efficient!
Yes there may still be scope for improvement, but considering the fact that even now, when considering that 80% of the whole aviation in frastructure in India is govt controlled, the changes over the last few years have been remarkable!
Cheers
Apropos of the subject of this thread, any incident in India, no matter how small, trivial or insignificant brings out the hordes of aviation bureaucrats, airport functionaries and other self-starting pencil pushers in droves, and invariably makes the local near-disaster headlines the next morning. And we think we have it bad with the journos here.
*******
Well may be if a "near disaster headline" was made of these incident, maybe someone would have been asking the question of whether anything could be done to improve things, esp since two incidents appeared to have happened one after the other. Tthe incident was hardly reported by local media.
Unfortunately Indian aviation journalism seems to be mainly confined to feeding off "offcial press releases" or quoting off airline propaganda fed to journos taken on sponsored junket!
And dont write off the aviation bureaucracy in India as totally worthless . The official regulator's site (www.dgca.nic.in) has improved by leaps and bounds over the years , and continues to improve over time. Same with the airports, and while some of the airports like BOM may still need improvement, airports like MAA and TRV (esp the domestic terminals) have become modern comfortable ones which are a pleasure to use. And airport security despite all the horror stories many people (esp those who have never flown in India recently) think, are polite and efficient!
Yes there may still be scope for improvement, but considering the fact that even now, when considering that 80% of the whole aviation in frastructure in India is govt controlled, the changes over the last few years have been remarkable!
Cheers
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: East of the Sun & West of the Moon
Posts: 286
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Just to add a few facts to the discussion.
I flew into Chennai for the first time last week. The runway under repair and displaced threshold info was clearly stated at the top of the notam package. The closure and threshold info were also noted on the ATIS and a warning was provided by the tower with the landing clearance.
Presumably some of this may be the result of the previous incidents, but at least efforts have been taken to rectify the situation.
The one poor element of the operation I noticed was that ATC was still assigning the LOC approach to 07 for night approaches when the surface wind was from the south and had a negligible tailwind/headwind component. With those conditions the choice of using 25 with a PAPI and no displaced threshold should have at least been offered to inbound flights.
Pete
I flew into Chennai for the first time last week. The runway under repair and displaced threshold info was clearly stated at the top of the notam package. The closure and threshold info were also noted on the ATIS and a warning was provided by the tower with the landing clearance.
Presumably some of this may be the result of the previous incidents, but at least efforts have been taken to rectify the situation.
The one poor element of the operation I noticed was that ATC was still assigning the LOC approach to 07 for night approaches when the surface wind was from the south and had a negligible tailwind/headwind component. With those conditions the choice of using 25 with a PAPI and no displaced threshold should have at least been offered to inbound flights.
Pete
Join Date: May 2003
Location: India
Posts: 79
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Nice to see some objectivity about the Indian airspace for a change !
Yes we do have our weak spots and as one friend pointed out, and flying here can really " test your professional skills" at times, but successive Ministries of Civil Aviation have been making small steps ( agreed much more could have been done, much faster) to improve conditions.
As far as the press goes, one needs to appreciate that aviation as a hobby per se is a very expensive way to spend your time in India and so the near dearth of people in other areas - as not dircetly related to flight- who would possess a professional interest.
The DGCA site is one of the best one can get and they have, in a very welcome move, made open ALL recent crash investigations which earlier was not the case.
So things aren't so bad after all mates...
Keep the Blue Sky Above
YA
Joles
Yes we do have our weak spots and as one friend pointed out, and flying here can really " test your professional skills" at times, but successive Ministries of Civil Aviation have been making small steps ( agreed much more could have been done, much faster) to improve conditions.
As far as the press goes, one needs to appreciate that aviation as a hobby per se is a very expensive way to spend your time in India and so the near dearth of people in other areas - as not dircetly related to flight- who would possess a professional interest.
The DGCA site is one of the best one can get and they have, in a very welcome move, made open ALL recent crash investigations which earlier was not the case.
So things aren't so bad after all mates...
Keep the Blue Sky Above
YA
Joles