“As part of the air safety measures planned for the IGI Airport, we are proposing to have a system of wireless hand-held devices on the airfield. Personnel will be posted in different areas with these devices and they will record any incident that they note. This will be shared with stakeholders in real time and also transferred to the DGCA, within five minutes of the occurrence, ensuring there is no loss of time,” Andrew Harrison, Chief Operating Officer, DIAL, told Newsline after a seminar on air safety management, organised in the Capital by the Foundation for Aviation and Sustainable Tourism.

“The idea is to capture an incident on time and ensure that correct and reliable information is passed on without any loss of time. This will help in analysis of incidents and understanding what went wrong. These hand-held devices will have an inspection module datasheet and an accident and incident module datasheet installed in them. Within five minutes, the DGCA and the authorities at the airport will be conveyed all information related to an incident recorded by it. We are examining the system, which is popular at airports across the world, and hope to implement it in about four weeks’ time,” said Harrison.

The Delhi airport was under public scrutiny for all the wrong reasons last year — an Air Deccan employee was found dead on the runway, Bihar’s Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi was injured, an Air Sahara coach collided with an Indian Airlines bus and a CISF inspector rammed his bike into an AAI official.

The system will complement the voluntary information reporting system of incidents currently in place. The DGCA is about to start its own internet-based voluntary reporting system this month. Once this system in place, anyone will be able to inform the directorate on the incidents they witness.