Foggy conditions at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) may have been responsible for several international flights overshooting the main runway at Timehri within the past week.
There have been two instances of international aircraft having to make more than one attempt at landing on the main runway at Timehri.
Director General of the Guyana Civil Aviation authority (GCAA) Zulficar Mohammed told Stabroek News yesterday that in both cases there were foggy conditions at Timehri. Both flights were landing at the airport in the early morning hours and Mohammed said that by character, Timehri is usually foggy during the morning hours.
Stating that both incidents were nothing unusual, he said when he manned the facility in years gone by, this was the case and the situation continues today.
Stabroek News reported last Monday that passengers on board a Delta Airlines flight from John F Kennedy International Airport, New York got a scare when the aircraft lifted off immediately after a shaky attempt at touching down.
A reporter on board the flight experienced, as many others did, the rougher than usual touchdown, which was quickly aborted as the plane powered up and took off again, to loud gasps from the passengers.
Minutes before the originally scheduled landing, the captain said that there was turbulence and that he would circle for a while until it eased up. Some time later the plane approached the runway and touched down briefly before taking to the skies seconds after.
About four or five minutes after the plane became airborne, the captain, over the public address system, apologised saying that the autopilot malfunctioned hence the aborted landing.
This newspaper was told that there was another instance on Wednesday morning when a Caribbean Airlines flight had a missed approach, leaving passengers alarmed and concerned at the time. Reports are that the aircraft was almost on the ground when it powered up and circled the airport before making another attempt at landing.
This newspaper understands that the Instrument Landing System (ILS) which was installed at Timehri recently is up and running and according to Mohammed, the air navigation facility has been flight checked, meaning that it can be officially used by aircraft landing at the airport.
He said the facility will be officially commissioned some time later in the year when the $700 million air navigation project aimed at upgrading the air traffic systems at Timehri is commissioned.
According to a source, while the ILS is being used by pilots, official data relevant to its usage are being forwarded to an International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) approved agency for publishing on charts used by pilots. The pilots flying into the international airport would at times rely on the ILS or the VOR at the airport to aid in the landing process and they are required to follow several procedures, influenced by time and distance, on their approach for landing.
Meantime, an investigation into last July’s CAL crash landing is still being undertaken and Mohammed said he was unsure when the investigation will be completed. He said he could not disclose at what stage the investigation is at the moment.
On the morning of July 31 last year, a CAL Boeing 737 overshot the runway at CJIA and came to a stop well beyond the end of the runway, breaking in two in the process and resulting in a number of persons being injured. One man had to have his leg amputated as a result of the accident.
Preliminary investigations into the incident pointed to pilot error as reports indicated that the aircraft touched down at a distance of more than half the length of the main runway at Timehri.
Stabroek News understands that since the accident, markings have been placed at every 1,000 feet of the 7,500 feet long runway.
