The Hindu : Hoardings land pilots in problems

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 02, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

Hoardings land pilots in problems

By T.S. Shankar

CHENNAI FEB. 1. An alarming increase in the number of neon lamp hoardings which have come up along the GST Road stretch, close to the Chennai airport, is becoming a major problem to pilots flying into Chennai after dusk.

Pilots, attached to both domestic and private carriers, complain that the glowing signs are distracting their attention, when they are looking for landing lights at the Meenambakkam airport.

As many as 100 hoardings, 25 of them neon lamp boards, have come up on either side of the highway. More disturbing, some of them have been installed near the end of the main runway.

The Indian Commercial Pilots Association, official apex body, has expressed to the Indian Airlines management serious concern at the "distraction caused by the neon hoardings" during an approach for landing from the St.Thomas Mount-end.

This fact and persistent complaints from pilots have made authorities sit up and start taking corrective action. A week ago, officials of the international airports division of the Airports Authority of India, the Cantonment Board, the National Highways Authority of India and the Directorate of Air Worthiness carried out a spot survey and identified the hoardings. A message was sent out to the Cantonment Board and the NHAI was that they should remove the neon lamp hoardings immediately.

Also, despite clear-cut rules, encroachments in varied sizes and shapes have mushroomed in the vicinity. The rules say there should be no tall structure or festoon within a 3-10-km radius of the airport. Stipulations have been framed for "surface slope areas" especially on the flight path of the airport covering a nearly 20-km radius.

For any such structure coming up, a "no-objection certificate" from the AAI, custodian of the airport terminal building, is a must. But, all these norms have been thrown to the winds.

Laser shows at the nearby Indian Airlines open-air auditorium during night have been banned after complaints came in from pilots, who found the lights disturbing.

Neon light hoardings along the route have again caused recurrence of the problem, raising serious questions of air safety.

"Our member line pilots have reported specific instances of distraction and deflection from the neon lamp hoardings, especially at the Guindy-Kathipara junction, on the flight path of the Distance Measuring Equipment-Very High Frequency Omni Range (DME-VOR) guided approach of the Chennai airport", say Sanjay Kapur, regional secretary, and Maniklal Sanghi, president of the ICPA, which has over 60 members drawn from the Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Kozhikode regions.

And the problem is not confined to Chennai, says Capt. Sanghi. In Hyderabad, marriage halls with bright lighting systems caused problems on Runway-27 end at the airport, which is guided by Instrument Landing Systems.

Several committees in the past studied the problem and came out with solutions. But none of the recommendations including those of the M.R. Sivaraman Committee has been implemented in toto, point out the ICPA office-bearers.

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