Islamabad ATC

Discuss issues and news related to PIA, Pakistani airlines and Pakistan's civil & military aviation.
Romeo Bravo
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Islamabad ATC

Post by Romeo Bravo »

http://www.brecorder.com/business-and-e ... 2014-11-16

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) seems to have drawn no lesson from the worst Airblue plane crash as air traffic controllers at the Islamabad Airport are dilettante and oftentimes commit errors, exacerbating safety issues for Islamabad-bound or departing flights.

"Sub-standard air traffic controlling is observed repeatedly at Islamabad Airport. I have repeatedly been writing such complaints about Islamabad air traffic control but nothing has been rectified so far," stated a pilot in his debrief report recently. The pilot of PIA flight PK-702 on Tuesday from MAN to Islamabad wrote in his debrief report, a copy of which is available with this correspondent, that air traffic controllers at Islamabad airport nearly endangered his flight due to very poor controlling of traffic.

"''Due to very poor controlling at Islamabad, we received an automatic advice (R.A) on TCAS (equipment in aircraft which alerts about conflicting traffic) at 5500 feet and had to steep climbed to 7500'' where a helicopter observed at 400'' below us," the report claimed. Meanwhile, aviation experts were surprised to learn that the ATC and Islamabad airport authorities have not yet learned anything from the tragic Airblue incident and still are making such grave errors which could result in a far greater tragedy given the traffic at Islamabad airport.

"It is quite sad that authorities here don''t learn from their mistakes. In fact they carry on with their usual negligence and don''t bother about the safety of passengers. This was a serious incident happened with this pilot but this too would not wake up our aviation authorities from their deep slumber," a source said.

He said that pilot duly mentioned that this negligence by ATC was a regular feature at Islamabad airport but still not resolved, which showed the CAA was still indifferent to this negligence and in no mood to set things right at such a busy airport. "The CAA should not then ask from pilots to report safety violations if they are not to act on that. This is a serious issue but CAA has turned it into a joke despite that we have had worst air accident at Islamabad a few years back. I feel we should know that our CAA is good for nothing," added a source at PALPA.

It is to be noted that the Airblue Flight 202 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight which crashed on 28 July 2010 in the Margalla Hills located north of Islamabad, making it the deadliest air accident in the history of Pakistan. The earlier report into the incident by CAA did not mention the role of Air Traffic Controllers and the mistake or mistakes committed by them as it was CAA''s own department; however, when Peshawar High Court took up the matter for hearing it rejected the report and ordered CAA to broaden the scope of its report. The final revised report submitted by CAA Pakistan mentioned poor quality of Air Traffic Control besides other areas that required upgrading at Islamabad Airport. Unfortunately, however, it seems nothing has been done so far in this regard.
TAILWIND
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Re: ISLAMABAD ATC

Post by TAILWIND »

TCAS RA advisory should have been investigated, but blaming the whole ISB ATC system on this is unfair.
I still believe ATC wasn't at fault in Airblue accident. Aviation disasters are investigated by experts not high courts.
malshah
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Re: Islamabad ATC

Post by malshah »

Romeo Bravo wrote: "''Due to very poor controlling at Islamabad, we received an automatic advice (R.A) on TCAS (equipment in aircraft which alerts about conflicting traffic) at 5500 feet and had to steep climbed to 7500'' where a helicopter observed at 400'' below us," the report claimed.
This pilot or BRecorder has to show a little more than the quote above to get any one's attention. Also we know from the AirBlue accident report, that ATC was not at fault. So I'm not sure what BR or the pilot have in mind when they complain.

The pilot has to prove that it is a pattern at ISB, and for that he/she will have to provide documents of other incidents of Traffic control neglect. One cannot overhaul an airport based on a singular complaint.
TAILWIND
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Re: Islamabad ATC

Post by TAILWIND »

The altitudes (5500 and 7000 ft) mentioned in the report, suggest the incident happened within the jurisdiction of islamabad Radar on chaklala ATC.
AN
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Re: Islamabad ATC

Post by AN »

ISB and LHE ATC is just rather poor, on a good day.

If three aircraft show up, theyre saturated and cannot handle more.
flyeconomy
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Location: Toronto

Re: Islamabad ATC

Post by flyeconomy »

AN wrote:ISB and LHE ATC is just rather poor, on a good day.

If three aircraft show up, theyre saturated and cannot handle more.
it means we have incompetent employees at the ATC.
Just like at every other institution or department of the country.
bravo45
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Re: Islamabad ATC

Post by bravo45 »

I fly pretty regularly into airport with no radar. Yes its a concern but its horrible if controllers (as mentioned above) can't seem to be able to handle 3 aircraft at the same time...

I recently flew with a captain who had flown cargo (I forget which carrier) in to various cities in Pakistan. He was saying the radar coverage was not good and the controllers were pretty bad. He did say it was a norm in the countries of that region. But in my opinion lack of equipment (radar) is one thing but there is no excuse for lack of skilled controllers.

Having read the report on Airblue accident, I don't remember the controllers really were the ones who screwed up that day.