The incident, on August 31, wherein two BJP Members of Parliament, Nishikant Dubey and Manoj Tiwari, and their entourage are alleged to have ‘forcibly obtained take-off clearance’ close to sunset, from the Air Traffic Control (ATC) at Deogarh airport in Jharkhand for their flight is a case of ‘tail-scraping’ established air safety norms. The politicians — they were in the State to meet the family members of a minor girl in Dumka who had been set ablaze by a stalker on August 23 — are reported to have reached the airport at around 5.25 p.m. to fly back to Delhi on a chartered twin-engine business jet. Based on complaints by the airport security-in charge and the Deputy Commissioner of Deogarh, the allegation is that the ATC was coerced into allowing the flight to depart, resulting in the Jharkhand police registering an FIR against the MPs and the others. Various sections of the Indian Penal Code such as ‘endangering life or personal safety’ have been applied. Mr. Dubey in turn filed an FIR in Delhi against the Deputy Commissioner and the Jharkhand police which includes, bizarrely, their being booked under Section 124A (sedition). It is at this point, air safety experts concur, that the clutter must be swept aside and the core issue of flight safety brought firmly into focus.
Deogarh, according to data available in the Aeronautical Information Publication, is still a Visual Flight Rules (VFR) airport, and night operations are not permitted. Further, point 3 under ‘En-Route–1.2 Visual Flight Rules’ states that “VFR flights shall not be operated between 20 minutes after sunset to 20 minutes before sunrise, except when exempted by air traffic control for local flights....”, the principle being that the airfield should be available in the event of an emergency after take-off under VFR conditions. It must be noted that sunset at Deogarh was at 6.03 p.m. and the flight left at 6.17 p.m. The difficulties the crew could have faced at such an airport in the event of an emergency, such as a bird hit or engine failure, do not have to be elaborated — avian life is active at twilight and Jharkhand is known to be a bird-rich spot. Other airports in the region available for a diversion are not close either. Additionally, to have one of the politicians who is part of a committee constituted by the Ministry of Civil Aviation attempting to push the boundaries of safety is unacceptable. The episode also highlights the pressures faced by air traffic controllers and officials, especially in small airports in India. As a member of the International Civil Aviation Organization and bound by its stringent rules, India must ensure that directives are followed and that there is a thorough and fair probe, with penalties, by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the Ministry of Civil Aviation. The politics should be fenced off.
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