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| May 04, 2007 | Friday | Rabi-us-Sani 16, 1428 |
CAA rejects adverse remarks made in NA
ISLAMABAD, May 3: The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on Thursday rejected remarks about its air traffic control system during a National Assembly debate and termed it biased.
Addressing a press conference at the Islamabad International Airport, CAA’s deputy director-general Air Vice Marshal Safdar Khan expressed apprehensions that the talk about radars’ unserviceability could have emanated from companies trying to sell their equipment.
He, however, declined to directly blame anyone for whatever had been said on the floor of the house.
“I am here to categorically reassure you that the country’s airspace is perfectly safe to operate and the radars are in perfect working condition,” he said, adding that the frequency of flights had gone up to 700 a day and no problem had been reported during the past year. “There is no area of concern.”
Asserting that radars’ serviceability record was 99 per cent, he said that the only incident of communication breakdown, lasting about three hours, had occurred a few months ago.
The parliamentary secretary of the ministry of defence on Wednesday shocked the National Assembly with his statement that antiquated air traffic control system could imperil even VVIP flights. This prompted Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain to seek a detailed report about the situation by May 15.
At the press conference, the CAA’s deputy chief said that an evaluation of radars had been going on for the past 10 months, adding that the study was aimed at scrutinising their serviceability, besides determining if they needed to be changed or upgraded. Most of the radars are 20 to 25 years old.
Reiterating the CAA’s stance, the air vice-marshal said that radars and navigational aids had no link with the PIA Fokker crash in Multan that killed 45 people.
However, he admitted that at the time of the crash, the navigational aids had not been calibrated, adding that the authority had adjusted radars immediately afterwards.
He refused to accept that the crash had shaken the aviation authority out of a deep slumber and insisted that the radar calibration was a move planned earlier.
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