Rourkela: The Airport Authority of India (AAI) has planned to train four air traffic control officers posted at Rourkela Airport and provide them with special visual flight rules (VFR) training so as to enable them to handle approaching aircraft during landing in any weather conditions. The four ATC officials were identified as David Topno, Amit Tigga, N Muralidhar, and Akhilesh Kumar of the airport. All of them have undergone aerodrome controller (ADC) training at different domestic and international airports in the country. They will be provided with one day of training at Rourkela by Saroj Kumar Sahu, AGM (ATC) December 26. After the practical training, they will go to Bhubaneswar for further verification, which will be over by January 2, 2024. The VFR training will not cost much to the AAI and the persons will be able to land a plane with 1,500 meters of visibility. Jeypore and Utkela airports already have VFR-trained staff.
However, only the 19-seater plane can land in these airports as their runways are much smaller in comparison to Rourkela airport. At Rourkela, the capacity is much larger, and in the future, with a 1,800-meter runway the airport will be able to handle the landing of more than 100-seater capacity flights. The development has come after Usha Padhee, principal secretary of the state Commerce and Transport department wrote to Nibedita Dubey, Regional Director of AAI, Eastern Region December 14. The letter specifically made a request for the establishment of an approach control unit at Rourkela Airport for the approval of a special VFR. The benefit of the VFR is almost free of cost apart from the training.
However, the Rourkela Airport requires an instrument landing system (ILS), so that larger planes can land during nighttime. The ILS, apart from its installation cost requires Rs 2 crores for annual maintenance. Reacting to this, Bimal Bisi, the president of the Sachetana Nagarika Mancha and former secretary of the Steel Executive Federation of India (SEFI) said, “We welcome this move.
However, our fight will continue for the installation of ILS at Rourkela Airport. Without the ILS Rourkela Airport will not be able to operate bigger flights. Our city is poised to become an IT hub soon and the efforts will suffer due to lack of ILS.”