Safety audit of airport needed: former DGCA

‘Acquire land for runway expansion’

A full-scale safety audit of Calicut International Airport should be carried out by the Civil Aviation Ministry to ensure safety of flyers and hassle-free flight operations, former Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) E.K. Bharat Bhusan has said.

“Such a safety audit will be able to clear the apprehensions that prevail among the flyers, operating airlines, and other aviation stakeholders on various safety aspects in the wake of the overshooting of the tabletop runway by the Air India Express B-737 aircraft last night,” Mr. Bhusan, a 1979 batch Kerala cadre IAS officer, who superannuated as Chief Secretary, told The Hindu .

Mr. Bhusan said the safety audit would also clear the concerns about the exact nature and whether relaxations had been given for the 240-m ‘runway end safety area’ (RESA) and the 60-m strip on both ends of the runway.

While serving as the DGCA, Mr. Bhusan was also responsible for developing a detailed domestic safety protocol for aviation, adopted in line with international norm, and aimed at optimal maintenance of aircraft and airports. Mr. Bhushan said the runway had several restrictions on account of various factors and hence the maintenance and recarpeting by the airport authorities should be looked into closely.

DGCA nod

The reported permission granted by the DGCA to the airlines, including two foreign carriers, to operate wide-bodied aircraft to Calicut should be looked into as it was a risky affair, he said.

The need for the safety audit assumed significance against the backdrop of the DGCA’s show-cause notice to the Airport Director on July 11 last year after it found ‘various critical safety lapses’ in different places, including cracks on the 2,860-m runway, water stagnation, and excessive rubber deposits.

Currently, a member of the Central Administrative Tribunal, Ernakulam, Mr. Bhusan said the solution was to go for land acquisition to increase the runway length.

“The State should take the lead with local and political support as it is a thickly populated area,” Mr. Bhusan, who started his career as Subcollector, Malappuram, said.