Amid a scathing report on a near collision between two aircraft in Guyana’s airspace that called for urgent measures including the procurement of distance measuring equipment (DME), Public Works Minister Robeson Benn yesterday said the air traffic control system is safe.
“Media reports have stated that the air traffic control system in Guyana is unsafe. This is not so,” Benn stated in response to a news item on the report that appeared in yesterday’s Kaieteur News. The minister described the news item as “sensational”.
The report done by captain Gregory Fox at the invitation of the Director General of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) described in detail the near mid-air collision of Delta Airlines flight DAL 383 departing Piarco, Trinidad for the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA), Timehri and Caribbean Airlines flight BW 484 departing CJIA for Piarco on October 7, 2008. This was the second so-called “dangerous loss of separation” since May, 2008.
Fox’s report, seen by Stabroek News, said that Air Traffic Controllers “are forced to work with unserviceable, obsolete and inadequate equipment”. Further, the investigation determined that the incident was due to Air Traffic Controller error which resulted from high work load, distractions from established procedures and partial loss of awareness.
During his speech yesterday at the GCAA Kingston headquarters, in observance of International Civil Aviation Day, Benn stressed that the equipment available to Air Traffic Controllers in Guyana is adequate to provide “safe delivery of Air Traffic Control (ATC) services”.
However, he noted that there is need to upgrade this equipment, further stating the government has already provided funds to modernize the available ATC equipment. The government, Benn said, has “sequestered G$700 million to address this problem of aging and aged equipment”.
The new equipment for this section of the aviation industry, Benn said, should be available by the first half of next year. Meanwhile, the existing equipment will be continuously “repaired and refurbished”.
Benn maintained that the ATC system in Guyana is safe. He stated that if there were a situation where the ATC was not safe in Guyana then the government would have been so advised by the GCAA and all operations would have been shut down and the necessary steps taken.
“We have not been informed that planes can’t fly through our air space or fly onto the CJIA or any other aerodrome in the country,” Benn stated.
Near mid-air
collision
The error which could have resulted in a collision between the two Boeings occurred just after a shift change from one Air Traffic Controller to another (referred to as Controller 1 and Controller 2 hereafter) between 8 pm and 8.16 pm on October 7.
At the time of the incident, the report stated, both aircraft were under the control of the Timehri Area Control Centre (TACC). Controller 2 was familiarizing himself with air traffic and the environment.
The Delta flight departed Trinidad at about 8 pm headed towards MINDA which is the reporting point at the entry to the Georgetown flight information region (FIR). Piarco, via voice link, informed Controller 2 at TACC of that flight’s position, altitude and estimated time of arrival at MINDA.
However, Controller 2 did not log that information on Controller 1’s board. Controller 1, unaware of this information, then gave clearance and instructions for the BW 484 flight to follow which would later cause it to come within three to five miles of the Delta flight.
Within minutes of Controller 2’s error, the BW 484 pilot reported seeing “proximate traffic” on its Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) display; that is traffic within 1200 feet of that aircraft’s altitude. The pilot took immediate evasive action.
Meanwhile, the Delta pilot reported seeing the other aircraft two to three miles away within 200 feet of their altitude. That pilot, according to the report, saw BW 484 in its turn to avoid the collision.
Lack of Air Traffi
Controllers
“Guyana’s ATC and air navigation system has such serious equipment deficiencies coupled with a controller shortage that the required standard of safety in Guyanese airspace cannot be guaranteed,” the reported listed under its findings.
Because of this lack, the report pointed out, many Air Traffic Controllers are working up to 60 hours of overtime per month. This situation is “very likely resulting in cumulative fatigue”, the report said, and will therefore result in situations like the October 7 incident.
Director General of GCAA, Zulficar Mohamed, noted this shortage of controllers yesterday during his speech at the observance of International Aviation Day held in Kingston.
“There is a shortage of Aeronautical Engineers, Security, Aviation Inspectors and Air Traffic Controllers,” Mohamed said.
He further noted that training and development are “critical” to the success of the civil aviation sector. How-ever, the investigation report on the October 7 event stated that serious deficiencies exist in almost all of the ATC equipment. This deficiency is so serious, the report said, that the system is close to being completely broken.
Further, the investigation revealed that Guyana remains at “severe risk of more of these types of very dangerous occurrences and even of mid-air accidents” unless the problems in the ATC sector are solved.
In its most searing indictment, the Fox report said that the fact that the Air Traffic Control (ATC) system works at all is due to the dedication of the professionals in the ATC branch and their innovative technicians.
“They are all working under relatively primitive conditions with a shortage of trained staff, having trouble attracting and retaining suitable recruits…They are forced to work with unserviceable, obsolete and inadequate equipment and a lack of spares, lack of navigation aids, especially DME”.
The report said that the controllers are also forced to work long hours. “This is a clear recipe for trouble and the complaints from Caribbean Airlines, local operators and the recent losses of separation that have already occurred are stark warning signals that it is only luck that has so far prevented a mid air disaster like that in Brazil”. It added that the existing ATC system was not safe and that it wasn’t the fault of the persons tasked with operating it. It urged that they be given the right tools and resources to make it safe.
In his findings, Fox stated that the aircraft passed more than three miles from one another based on information provided by the pilots and it was likely that the distance was just over five miles.
The report listed a series of recommendations including refresher training for the two controllers involved but no disciplinary action as “neither carelessness nor negligence was a factor in the error”.
It called for the urgent installation of DME at Timehri. “Repeat for emphasis: on an urgent basis a DME should be installed at Timehri”. The report also appealed for urgent real time anemometer and barometric information to Timehri controllers and replacement of the headsets and cords in the air traffic control units.
On an urgent basis, the report said that controller resources should be expanded to match the real workload and there should be a recurrent training programme. It also called for the timely acquisition and installation of approach, navigation and communication aids.
