April 14, 2007	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 25, 1428

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

ISLAMABAD, April 13: The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on Friday assured the passengers and pilots that all safety measures were being taken to make airports safe for operations.

Replying to reservations raised about the overdue calibration of navigational aids at most of the airports in Dawn’s Friday edition titled “CAA fails to implement flight safety measures”, CAA spokesman Pervez George reiterated the same fact, which had been mentioned in the story that after the Sharjah crash of CAA aircraft, the authority was maintaining the navigational aids with the help of PAF Y-12 and CASA aircraft using ground based reference and communication systems to carry out the functional checks of ILSs, VORs, NDBs and PAPIs at all major airports.

This, he said, was done to ensure the serviceability of its navigational, landing systems.

Additionally, all airport authorities have been directed to closely monitor the ground test results on weekly basis of all the systems, he added.

All ground test results and technical reports of these facilities suggest that they are fully serviceable and all the parameters are within the limits set by the ICAO document-8071. Regarding the faulty Precision Approach Path Indicators at Islamabad airport, he said, the issue had been dramatised.

However, the spokesman did not deny the notice to airmen that mentioned that calibration of most of the airports was overdue and had formed the basis of the story.

Neither did he deny that CAA in the past misled the ministry of defence on this issue, something which is documented and proofs are available with Dawn.

Meanwhile, Parliamentary Secretary Defence Maj (retired) Tanvir Hussain said that CAA’s claim was not authentic enough. He was of the opinion that the sensitive issue of calibration of airports had been persistently ignored because unprofessional people were allegedly running the CAA affairs.

It should be recalled that Maj Tanvir had been quite vocal on the issue in the parliament and was one of the whistle blowers on the flight safty issue. He believes that ignoring calibration at the right time with the right equipment was even rendering VIP flights vulnerable.