New Delhi: Indira Gandhi International Airport refuses to stop making news.
On Saturday afternoon, the multiple radar system that handles over 600 traffic movements a day, stopped working because of a software failure. The breakdown lasted nearly an hour.
There is a software that identifies each blip on the Air Traffic Control’s (ATC) screen with a flight number and other details without which every plane just becomes a nameless dot on the screen.
The ATC tried to switch to a backup that also failed at this crucial juncture.
Finally the ATC fell back on to the older version of the radar that identified the position of the planes but did not give any detail about the aircraft.
What this did was to increase the workload on the controllers slowing down operations by as much as 50 per cent and increasing the margin for error.
ATC officials declined to comment on camera but admitted that had the breakdown occurred on a weekday or during the peak hours.
Flights could have been severely affected but it being a Saturday the situation was saved and flights were delayed by about 20 minutes.
Comments
0 comment