LAHORE: A $25 million anti-fog system recently installed at the Lahore airport after a hard work of five months has failed to benefit passengers as either the aeroplanes lack a corresponding system or pilots are not trained to utilise it.

On Tuesday, none other than Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had had the first-hand experience of the ‘failed’ system when he, along with other passengers, was aboard a plane that could not land at the Lahore airport due to dense fog despite the fact that visibility level was over 50 meters. Five other domestic and international flights were diverted to other airports from Lahore because of this factor.

Shahbaz Sharif was returning from Istanbul by the Turkish Airlines which was scheduled to land here at 4am. A Civil Aviation Authority official told Dawn that the visibility level at the Allama Iqbal International Airport was 100 meters but the pilot was trained for landing the aircraft at visibility level of 150 meters. “The pilot kept flying for an hour over Lahore waiting for the visibility to improve. But eventually he diverted the plane to Karachi from where the flight came back at 11.35am after the visibility improved,” he said.

CM’s flight diverted to Karachi

Last month the chief minister had inaugurated the Instrument Landing System CAT-III(B) at the airport and said it was the best anti-fog system enabling aircraft landing even at 50 meters visibility level. “Lahore is the first airport of the country and the second of South Asia where this modern system has been installed and now the aircraft will land safely in fog and the schedules of flights will not be affected,” he had said. Flights continue to be diverted to other airports since the fog set in in the provincial metropolis.

The CAA says the new system is working very well and the pilots have failed to take ‘full advantage’ of it. The system’s cost has been borne by a Gulf country.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the CAA said: “It is clarified that ILS Cat-III(B) is fully functional and operational at AIIAP Lahore. The latest system is the state-of-the-art system capable of assisting aircraft to land in poor visibility conditions till a RVR (Runway Visual Range) limit of 50 meters. However, the landing ability of the aircraft is dependent on three major factors: minimum visibility up to 50 meters, the pilots need to be fully trained to make full utilization of the CAT-III(B) and the aircraft needs to be equipped with the relevant on board avionics which commensurate with the system on ground,” the CAA said, adding if the visibility was less than 50 meters or the aircraft/aircrew did not meet the landing qualification, it would not be possible to land the aircraft.

“In this context, the CAA had already informed all the airlines to upgrade their aircraft along with training of their pilots to make them conversant with the ILS Cat-III(B) system at the Lahore airport in order to make full use of this system and avoid inconvenience to the public,” it said.

The PIA has rescheduled some of its flights going to Lahore and other parts of Punjab due to heavy fog in order to avoid delays and diversions. The PIA said all its Boeing 777 pilots had been trained for ILS CAT-III (B) as its training simulator was available in Pakistan. “However A-320 pilots have to be sent abroad for training. They are being sent turn by turn and soon all pilots would get ILS CAT-III(B) training,” the PIA said.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2015