Kathmandu, April 3

The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal continues to short-change the stakeholders, including the airlines, as pilots revealed that the threshold at the southern end of the runway at the country’s sole international airport was soiled by rubber deposits that have not been removed for years, obscuring runway markings.

According to them, this piling of rubber deposits at the southern end of the runway designated 02 at Tribhuvan International Airport, where most arriving jet aircraft make first ground contact, on the one hand make the area slippery by reducing friction and therefore causing conditions ripe for a landing aircraft losing directional control and making an undesired runway excursion, with possibly fatal consequences. “It’s more tricky for us to make a safe landing during rainy season, as rubber deposits make the runway threshold slippery,” a senior jet pilot said.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation requires the aerodrome services provider -- CAAN -- to inform the airlines of the nature and state of the runway and formally specify by appropriate publication the friction values, below which the runway is declared unusable for traffic. Also, the ICAO annex on aerodromes  under provisions on removal of contaminants  clearly specifies that  ‘snow, slush, ice, standing water, mud, dust, sand, oil, rubber deposits and other contaminants shall be removed from the surface of runways in use as rapidly and completely as possible to minimise accumulation’.

The aeronautical information published by CAAN is, however, silent about the means of measuring runway friction at the sole certified aerodrome in Nepal and goes on to state under Section AD 1.1-5. “There are no such specific mechanical devices used for the friction measurement.” Nor does the section indicate the friction value set as a baseline as mandated by the ICAO. The state of TIA’s single runway and its maintenance leaves a lot to be desired. Deputy Director General at CAAN Mahendra Singh Rawal, however, said day-to-day maintenance of the runway was the responsibility of TIA. “I will take up the issue with the officials concerned,” the DDG, who also looks after the Aerodrome Operations Directorate, added.

Talking to this daily, a senior CAAN director, however, revealed that the CAAN had bought two expensive runway-friction measuring machines from abroad, besides a water pressure rubber-deposit removal machine, but the machines were lying idle in a state of disrepair, as the responsible officials had already pocketed the incentives that come along -- all paid foreign trip and a handsome commission.

In ICAO parlance, the status of a ‘certified’ aerodrome implies meeting all relevant international standards stipulated by the United Nations aviation agency. If the state of runway maintenance of TIA is so appalling, one can imagine the fate of other domestic aerodromes, a senior captain noted. “No wonder, many runway excursions in the past, including the recent one at Bhairhawa were attributed to ‘inappropriate crew inputs’ by the veteran air safety investigators,” he added.