Deccan Herald(30-06-2006)
http://www.deccanheraldepaper.com/

Manmohan flight escapes disaster

Plane lost contact with ground control  

NEW DELHI:Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s flight from Bangalore on July 24 had come close to disaster on landing at the Palam airport in New Delhi. It had lost touch with the airport control tower for agood four minutes.

The special Indian Air Force Embraer jet carrying Dr Singh — who had taken off after laying foundation stones for the Bangalore Metro as well as a 10-lane highway—and senior officials of the PMO, had touched down on the Delhi airport runway at 7.52 pm. Almost immediately after, the two-way communication system went dead as the very high frequency (VHF) communication gadget meant exclusively for the President/Prime Minister’s aircraft stopped functioning.

Even as the plane was taxiing on the runway, there was no communication between the cockpit and the airport control tower. Until then, communication had been perfect as the aircraft had entered the Delhi airspace and the control tower hadeven given it the mandatory clearance forlanding.

As the officials at the Air Traffic Control (ATC) panicked, the aircraft slowly moved towards the technical area and parked without any incident. Alarmed ATC officials re-established links with theaircraft from the IAF’s VIP squadron by switching to an alternate frequency, thesources said.

An ATC official said: “Anything couldhave happened during those four minutes.As this plane was using the specially designated VHF communication,the ATC could have given clearance for the other flights through the normal communications systems. Communication failures, especially while an aircraft is preparing to land or is taxiing on the runway, could lead to serious incidents.”Such failures could lead to pilots not being alerted as to which taxiway to take to move to the parking bay, or as to whether there is an aircraft approaching or cruising on the runway or a vehicle travelling on the route.

The sudden communications failure is now being probed by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). Accordingto airport sources, preliminary reports indicated the likelihood of the problem having emanated from the failure of theground equipment.

When contacted, an IAF spokesmansaid:“The aircraft had been in continuous radio telephony (RT) communication with the Palam ATC throughout.”The DGCA is also checking the entire communications equipment installed at the airport, thesources said.

VVIP jets

The new Embraer business jet, onwhich Dr Singh had flown, was inductedinto the IAF on September 20, 2005. The plane, armed with missile-deflecting systems, is a 14-seater special configuration jet.

The VVIP Embraer is the first aircraft  in India to be armed with self-protection suites to guard against missile attacks andother threats. Though the aircraft were made in Brazil, they were retrofitted in United States with anti-missile shields.

The aircraft,which replaced the ageingAvro aircraft in the VVIP squadron, hasmodern flight management and flying features, including a global positioning system and a Category II landing system facility. The Prime Minister’s plane was one ofthe five VVIP flights purchased by the Government at a cost of Rs 750 crore.