Delhi's new ATC tower

The capital will soon have the country’s tallest air traffic control (ATC) tower with the Airports Authority of India (AAI) finalizing the design of a 90-95-metre structure. The tower will be taller than the existing 60-metre ATC and the 72.5-metre Qutub Minar. The 112-metre Civic Centre on Minto Road will, however, remain Delhi’s tallest building. The new tower will have the latest equipment and many features will be a first for India. Along with the automation, the entire project will cost Rs 250-300 crore. The design has been drawn up by Hong Kong-based HOK International Ltd that gave AAI option of a central lift and crystal shapes. The authority chose the central lift. GMR Group chief G M Rao had said at T3’s inauguration earlier this month that construction would begin in six months and will be over in two years. The new tower-cum-technical block will come up exactly between the existing tower and T3. The ultimate development plan for IGI four parallel runways. One more runway will be laid parallel to the newest (29) and the main (28) airstrips and come up near Centaur Hotel that may have to be demolished then. The airport’s smallest runway (27) currently merges with the main runway. The alignment of this runway will be changed in coming years to have all four runways parallel to each other and allow independent operation on each one of them. At present, air traffic controllers sitting atop the 60-metre-high tower have trouble seeing aircraft on the newest runway in fog and other bad weather days. The Delhi ATC software, Raytheon Auto Track-II, is currently being upgraded to Auto Track-III system that has several advanced features like generating automatic alerts if an aircraft heads to a no fly zone or is on a collision course with another plane. Its “arrival manager” allows controller to tackle congestion by adjusting traffic flow on a real time basis. In a special security feature, the system gives out alarms if a plane deviates from its set course. Airlines, however, sound a word of caution and have two advice for the state-run authority that controls ATC — take steps to fill the huge manpower gaps in ATC and communication, navigation and surveillance disciplines and avoid at all cost the kind of radar blackouts that Delhi and Mumbai airports have witnessed this year.