Why are pilots not trained to land in foggy conditions, even though Delhi airport has the required lights and equipment?
In the months immediately following the winter of December 2015, Mr.Ajay Prasad, the Secretary of Civil Aviation in India issued a statement at a press conference at Delhi. – "We have asked private airlines to take positive steps to ensure that they have pilots and necessary equipment to operate in foggy conditions. In case they are not ready by next winter, we have to consider not giving them flights out of and into Delhi." This statement came after chaotic scenes were witnessed at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport, due to confusion prevailing among passengers scheduled to travel in flights that were either delayed or cancelled due to inability of our pilots to execute Category III B landings. (landings that are necessarily done with poor visibility due to foggy conditions.)
Admitted, this skill (that requires intensive, expensive training) is the need of the hour during our winters, but did the concerned official stop for a minute to think about the practical and safety issues involved in executing this before passing such an ultimatum? Although it may be true that the private airlines are mostly only concerned about their profits and bottom lines and attribute their lack of Category III B trained pilots as lack of cost effectiveness, one cannot but accept the hard facts about safety of the passengers that stare us in the face, before we even think of going ahead with this training.
While Delhi airport may be equipped with the required facilities, our minister's statement exposes flaws and even bankruptcy in our professional knowledge of flight safety norms. To quote an example, a Canadian airline aircraft suffered huge damage to its wing while attempting a CAT III B landing – this, even though the pilot was widely experienced in the same – and we are trying to force our airlines with inexperience crew into an unknown territory.
Is it not strange that while we are hurrying this issue, many international carriers that are equipped to land in CAT 111 B conditions opted not to use their facilities simply because the risks were too high? The problem in Delhi airport is of additional concern in the sense that the International Federation of Airline Pilots has declared Delhi Airport unsafe – implying that all the ground based aids mandatory for these landings should be fully compliant with the International Civil Aviation Organization's requirements.
Though the argument of the airlines that winter, and hence such weather, lasts only a couple of months and this does not warrant such huge investments in training, it is noteworthy that the DGCA circular makes it mandatory for all operators to qualify for CAT II initially, operate under CAT II rules for a whole year before progressing to CAT III. This increases the cost of training due to duplication. Considering that most of our airlines have fresh pilots doing our domestic flights; it would take a while before we have pilots trained to make such landings.
The problem then, as we see, is not the lack of qualified pilots, which is a possible reason why this is still not implemented at the Delhi airport. According to an article by an airline pilot with 19,000 hours' experience, the solution lies in first, upgrading our airport infrastructure moving to satellite navigation and second, to try and woo the experienced Indian captains flying abroad; they are all highly qualified and have experience of operating under CAT III conditions. Also, the raising of the retirement age for pilots to 65 and the lowering of the minimum experience level required for new captains and co-pilots will ensure safer operations.
That day is not far when we start and reach our destinations on time, come winter or fog, it is just a matter or time and how best we choose to do it. We will reach for the skies, and also get there!
By
Aishwarya Kasinathan
