The sophisticated air traffic management system at Indira Gandhi International Airport, which was operationalised in March, crashed today, disrupting flight movements for almost 20 minutes.
Incoming and outgoing flights were disrupted between 1754 hours and 1814 hours as the Autotrac-III system crashed, resulting in the air traffic control (ATC) screens going blank, airport sources said.
The radar collapse at ATC led to delay in the departure of five domestic flights and the arrival of a few but no flight was diverted, the sources said.
The ATC at the Airport migrated to the upgraded Autotrac-III in March. However, the ATC officials quickly switched to the earlier system — Autotrac-II — to restore air traffic, they added.
A software glitch was suspected to be the prime cause for the crash adding that Autotrac-III had stopped transmitting inputs to the radar consoles, which show the traffic in the airspace controlled by the ATC tower and give vital information like aircraft speed, height and call-signs.
“The passengers enjoyed the arrival at the airport and were properly guided by the cabin crew and the airport staff. The immigration was also smooth. Only, the duty-free shops were not fully stocked,” said an airline official, who did not wish to be identified.
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This is the third time this year that ATC had collapsed. In the earlier crashes on January 14 and 26, ATC had to switch over to the manual procedure to maintain vertical and horizontal separation between aircraft and to enable them to land or take off.
The earlier crashes happened when US company Raytheon’s Autotrac-III system was being tested for installation.