BIA repairs fatal flaw, finally

Here’s looking forward to smoother landings at the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) as a New Year’s gift to air passengers arriving in the city. BIA is correcting its faulty angle of descent (called glide-slope), which causes the aircraft to land with a thud, much to the inconvenience of the passengers, AN Vishwanath, general manager (co- ordination), BIA, told DNA.

“We hope to have the glide path corrected by December 31,” he said. The airport presently has a steep angle of descent of 3.4 degrees for flight landings as compared to the international standard of 3 degrees. This causes aircraft to land harder causing discomfort among the passengers.

The relocation of the glide-slope equipment and correction of the angle of descent would cost around Rs20 lakh, which will be borne by the Bengaluru International Airport Limited (BIAL) and the Airports Authority of India (AAI), Vishwanath said.

The correction will be made on Runway 27, which is used for most part of the year. “Pilots find it difficult to manoeuvre the aircraft while landing at BIA due to a glide-slope being steeper than the ideal 3 degrees. It becomes difficult to control the aircraft. The aircraft might go off the runway, or experience a sudden bump on landings, and in certain cases, tyres might burst. The situation worsens in bad weather,” Vishwanath said.

Moreover, with the glide-slope at 3.4 degrees, the airport cannot use category-II (CAT-II) or CAT-III landing systems, which are more sophisticated than the currently used CAT-I ILS at BIA.

The CAT-I ILS can allow landings only when the visibility is more than 550 metres. This is why flight operations have to be suspended on some days in monsoon or winter.