Aai Not To Invoke Penalty Clause Against Raytheon

Airport Authority of India (AAI) has decided not to invoke a penalty clause against US major Raytheon. The latter had missed its January 31 deadline for carrying out system site acceptance tests for equipment installed at the air traffic control (ATC) near the Delhi international airport.

Instead, AAI has extended the deadline till April following a request from Raytheon. ``Our aim is to modernise the ATC and not to fight legal battles, said a top AAI official.

According to aviation experts, if Raytheon equipment had been in operation at the air traffic control, one of the worlds worst air disasters which occurred in November last year near Delhi killing over 350 people could have been avoided.

 

If AAI had invoked the penalty clause, it could have claimed liquidity damage upto a maximum of 7.5 per cent of the total project cost, which is worth Rs 423 crore. As per an initial plan, the entire modernisation project of the air traffic control, of which Raytheon is a prime contractor, should have been completed by October 1995.

According to sources, all the equipment will not become operational before July mainly due to shortage of radar controllers and the apparent slowness in testing each equipment.

Sources said that Federal Aviation Authority inspectors are yet to certify airport surface detection equipment installed by Raytheon as its resolution is poor and cannot distinguish two moving objects if they are near each other.

Sources point out that as only a couple of countries have been using the Raytheon equipment, its success or failure rate has not been assessed. Also, AAI will have to install a full back-up system to take care of any emergencies.

The new system allows the ATCs to detect whether the aircraft is gaining or losing height and even gives out audio-visual warning to the controllers. In the primary radar which is being currently used by the ATCs, only distance and direction can be tracked which is complemented by verbal communication from the pilots.

The new system is equipped with two sets of radars with each set having a primary radar co-located with mono pulse secondary surveillance radar. While one set is for approach controller (S-band radar) which provides air traffic control service to incoming and outgoing aircraft, the other set is for area control system (L-band radar) for aircraft which are either overflying the airport or have already attained a certain height.

Another part of the system consists of radar data processing system (RDPS), flight data processing system (FDPS) and automatic self-briefing system (ASBS).

While RDPS carries out automatic tracking of the aircraft, FDPS carries out automatic processing of flight data. ASBS gives information on the status of navigational aid, meteorological conditions and processes various messages received from other air traffic controls.