Mumbai air traffic control software failure delays morning flights

On Sunday morning, Mumbai airport had a taste of the troublesome auto-track III (AT3) system that has given Delhi airport some hard times in the past. The system currently under trial, failed for two hours, causing minor disruptions in flight movement. However, it was soon restored with no consequential flight delays spilling over during the day.

On July 3 at 3.10am, the AT3 system that has been under trial at the airport since May 20, failed and led to flight delays of 20-25 minutes.  “The system plunged to degraded mode of operation and could not be used till 5am,” says a Mumbai air traffic control (ATC) official.

The AT3 system links all the ATC workstations and relays flight information like flight number, speed, altitude, distance between two aircrafts, etc.  AT3 helps the ATC to prioritise landings after gauging the speed and altitude of the aircraft.

The switchover from AT3 to AT2 caused delays of 15-25 minutes and four departures and one arrival was impacted. “As only international operations take place during this time and the intersection point of both runways was closed for maintenance, fewer flights were impacted.  Had this happened during peak hours, it would have been a major chaos,” said the official.

Engineers were immediately summoned and by 5.05am, AT3 was restored.