The Airports Authority of India (AAI) established Air Traffic Services at the Kannur international airport on Friday.
The move is to help calibrate the latest generation of Instrument Landing System (ILS) procured from Norway to guide aircraft to precision landing. The Flight Inspection Unit (FIU) of AAI, led by Assistant General Manager L.N. Prasad, started the ground-to-air calibration on Friday morning.
The FIU team, with a pilot, co-pilot and two technicians, took off from the runway at around noon on a Beechcraft B350 series aircraft that was brought in from Delhi on Thursday evening via Hyderabad.
The aircraft, guided by the Air Traffic Control (ATC), moved in different altitudes in the airspace of Kannur and continued with the calibration till 6.30 p.m. despite the overcast sky. Though the FIU team had planned to land on the main runway of the airport where the ILS is installed, it later landed on Runway 07 on the western side due to inclement weather.
On Saturday too, the calibration by the FIU team would continue from 9 a.m to 10.30 a.m., a top official of the Kannur airport told The Hindu . Following a report by the FIU team, the calibration certificate would be handed over by the AAI to the Director General of Civil Aviation, he said.
The ILS procedure has to be designed, and Aeronautical Information Publication, with details of regulations, procedures and other information pertinent to operation of aircraft at Kannur, has to be published by the Air Traffic Management wing of the AAI for the pilots.
Trial run using bigger aircaft and the final inspection of the DGCA of the ground facilities, fire services, allied services, runway, lighting, markings, ATC and inline x-ray machine will be held in the first two weeks of September before the grant of the aerordrome licence.
Already, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security has accorded Security clearance to the airport. Customs has notified the airport and Ministry of Home Affairs has notified it as as an Authorised Immigration Checkpoint.
