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The Rediff Special/Chindu Sreedharan

Will such an accident happen again?

In the radar room of Delhi's Indira Gandhi airport, senior air traffic controller V K Datta is not present. Dutta is the ATC who, an year ago, was on duty that evening, and, at some seconds past 6.40 pm, saw the two dots on his computer screen merging and disappearing

Today, Dutta is not on duty. And unlike that black Tuesday, there is no Saudia flight to take off. Nor a Kazakh aircraft, with shoppers for Janpath, coming in. The radar controller, a senior ATC, is alert, yet relaxed. He is talking to the pilot of a Hans helicopter on the ATC frequency, guiding him in. At 6.34 pm the chopper is safe on the tarmac.

Four minutes later, a Hyderabad-bound Indian Airlines flight takes off from runway 28. At 6.48 pm, another IA, this one to Bombay, is up and climbing safely. There are more flights scheduled about 20 in the next hour to be guided in and out, but the controller is finding it much more easier than Dutta did last year.

"Our work has become slightly easier, thanks to the segregation of air corridors," ATC officials say.

Following the 200-page report which the R C Lahoti Committee, constituted specially to probe the matter, submitted to Civil Aviation Minister Chand Mahal Ibrahim (the report had found it was the Kazakh pilot who was solely to blame for the incident), the air safety norms have bettered. For one, the authorities have bifurcated the two main air corridors Green 456 and A 466 making it possible for aircraft to approach and leave Delhi through different routes.

"Now, the modernisation of air traffic control is in its last stages," claims Airport Authority of India deputy director (operations) S K Sikka, "It includes installing state-of-the-art flight data and radar processing equipment, and automatic self breathing system which would provide the pilot all the flight data he needs. In another two months we hope to take over the equipment from Raytheon (the US supplier)."

Besides, he adds, the directorate of civil aviation is planning to make it mandatory for all planes flying through the Indian airspace to have collision avoidance system installed.

"To begin, they would start with making its compulsory for all aircraft which can seat more than 30," Sikka says, "It is scheduled to take effect from January 1, 1999."

So, has air safety improved remarkably after the Charkhi Dadri mishap?

"No, it hasn t really," claims ATC Guild general secretary Brijendra Shekhar, "The situation has eased slightly, true, but, overall, the desired changes which the court of inquiry wanted has not come about."

Indian Commercial Pilots Association general secretary Captain Ajith Singh agrees. "There has been a slight improvement, but not all that much," he says, "You can detect more alertness on the part of all air officials now."

Besides the segregation of corridors, Shekhar says the authorities has done pretty little. The modernisation plan is still to be implemented, and in the air corridor bifurcation, there are still loopholes to be plugged. For instance, Shekhar points out, the segregation has taken place only on the two major routes.

"What about the rest?" he asks, "There should be bifurcation on all routes. Also, on the G 456 corridor, the separation of the incoming and outgoing flights is not by the desired 15 degrees the airspace in between is far less than it should be."

The Guild had put forward 15 recommendations to the DGCA. These included improving crew resource management, modernisation of equipment, facilitating direct contact between the pilot and the controller (prohibiting the use of interpreters) and route bifurcation.

"Except for one, none of these have been implemented," Shekhar says, "There is a lot to be done."

May be it's the ghosts, or may be he is in a hurry to get back home, but on the road near his farm, as the sun lowers itself into the horizon, farmer Sharma is a bit too fidgety.

"Chalo," he says, "Let's go back. I am scared of ghosts!"

Earlier, when we had met Sub Divisional Magistrate O P Lohan and police officials, they had pooh-poohed the reports about ghosts. No truth in it, they claimed, the locals are perfectly at peace with the incident.

"Public memory is short," Lohan had said, "And in the case of the locals here, it lasts only about three months! It has not left any lasting impression on their minds. The dead are not of the local population. Hardly anyone will even remember that today is the first anniversary."

The statement had proved true. Though the villagers have not forgotten the tragedy, it has faded in their minds, and, except for Sharma, no one seemed to remember when it happened.

"It occurred on November 30 or there about," claimed a youth, while his older village cousins confessed: "Date tho maloom nahin, saab."

But, as for Lohan's claim the villagers had no irrational fears, that appeared to be quite wrong. For the villagers, the ghosts of the aircrash is very much a reality -- the empty farmland and the road running across it is proof enough. And here was the land-owner himself who, though half-jokingly, is claiming he is scared of ghosts.

"Chalo bhai," Sharma repeats, moving on.

As 6.41 pm approaches, a three-quarter full moon shines out of a clear blue sky, giving the deserted land an eerie look. But that was all. No ghosts howled, no strange figure flitted by and no drone of aircraft punctuated the silence.

The Rediff Special

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