ATC glitch at airport, no flights hit

Aug 05, 2011 - Sridhar Kumaraswami |

Age Correspondent

New Delhi

The crucial Voice Control Communication System (VCCS) failed for some time at the Air Traffic Control (ATC) at the IGI airport on Thursday morning following which the ATC switched over immediately to a battery-operated standby system to communicate with aircraft, sources confirmed. When contacted, an Airports Authority of India (AAI) official said that at about 10.34 am, the VCCS went into a “auto re-set mode” and that the glitch was rectified at about 10.54 am, a time-span of 20 minutes.

The AAI official further said that one of the frequencies (for transmission between the ATC and aircraft) was affected due to the glitch but that the ATC immediately switched over to alternate frequencies. A software glitch could be behind the system failure. Sources said the ATC is likely to send a report on this to the DGCA.
The ATC comes under the purview of the AAI which is also likely to order an enquiry into the incident.

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