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Mohali: No approach lighting system for flights landing at airport

MOHALI: The Chandigarh International Airport has been operating without runway approach lights, which guide the pilot during bad weather conditions at the airport. Chandigarh International Airport Limited (CHIAL) chief executive officer (CEO) Suneel Dutt said that approach lights for CAT-ILS-I will be installed within 6 months.



Dutt said, "We are in for upgradation of the landing system at the airport. Approach lighting system is also a part of the upgradation. We will be installing the approach lighting system within 6 months under the CAT-ILS-I category. Once the CAT-ILS-III is installed at the airport, the same category lighting system will also be installed."

He said that an approach lighting system (ALS) is a lighting system installed on the approach-end of an airport runway and consists of a series of lightbars, strobe lights, or a combination of the two that extends outward from the runway end. ALS usually serves a runway that has an instrument approach procedure (IAP) associated with it and allows the pilot to visually identify the runway environment and align the aircraft with the runway upon arriving at a prescribed point on an approach.

While explaining the working of the ALS, Dutt said that depth perception is inoperative at the distances usually involved in flying aircraft, and so the position and distance of a runway with respect to an aircraft must be judged by a pilot using only two-dimensional cues such as perspective, as well as angular size and movement within the visual field. Approach lighting systems provide additional cues that bear a known relationship to the runway itself and help pilots in judging the distance and alignment for landing.

"In the CAT-ILS-I, approach without an ALS will require a minimum visibility of 3/4th of a mile, or 4,000 feet runway visual range. With a 1,400-feet or longer approach light system, the minimum required visibility might be reduced to half a mile (2,400 runway visual range), and the presence of touchdown zone and centreline lights with a suitable ALS might further reduce the visibility requirement to 3/8th of a mile (1,800 feet runway visual range)," said Dutt.

The runway lighting is controlled by the air traffic control tower. At non-towered airports, pilot-controlled lighting may be installed that can be switched on by the pilot via radio. In both the cases, the brightness of the lights can be adjusted for day and night operations.

Dutt also said that the biggest achievement for the CHIAL was to become operational round-the-clock after installing all the relevant facilities at the Chandigarh airport to support night operations. Moreover, the length of the runway has been increased to 10,400 meters and its re-surfacing has enhanced the performance of operations at the airport, the CEO said.

However, even after the announcement of late-night flights in the winter schedule, no flight operators have so far opted to arrive and depart from Chandigarh airport after 8:20pm. The late-night flights were scheduled to arrive and operate till 11:40pm, but it never became operational.

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