Oversight In The Skies

According to officials at the Airport Authority of India (AAI), India has a vast air space at its command which is difficult to police. Air space is allotted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to all countries who are signatories to the agreement which was signed in 1975. In addition to the skies above it, the Indian civil surveillance also extends over Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Are we adequately equipped to handle the over 650 aircraft which fly over Indian skies every day without landing? Projections suggest that the number of airplanes, after the induction of the Open Sky policy, is on the increase while our air surveillance system remains to be strengthened. According to statistics available with the AAI, on an average 19,000 aircraft take off or land every month from the five major airports—Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta, Madras and Trivandrum, in the country. This figure does not include defence aircraft.

The load factor on the country's five ATC (Air Traffic Control) zones is voluminous. The five zones are Delhi, Calcutta, Madras, the North-east and Bombay. There are in all about 1,500 ATC officers throughout the country and given the volume of traffic, the ATC personnel are an overworked lot. Points out a senior ATC official: "In Europe, an ATC officer is expected to work four hours in a shift. Here we are made to work up to 12 hours at a stretch." 

The ATC Officers' Association has made several representations to the Civil Aviation Ministry for better working conditions but the authorities have not acted. Interestingly, the suspension of the three ATC officials at Varanasi, Calcutta and Madras airports for negligence has been revoked. This was done because the Aviation Ministry was under pressure from the association and also because there is the growing feeling that ATC officials alone cannot be blamed for the manner in which the AN-26 could hoodwink the surveillance network and stray from its course. The ATC officials, who work in shifts, receive the approved flight plan of civilian aircraft from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and track the movement of the aircraft from the time it enters Indian air space. The aircraft is on the radar monitor until it leaves its allotted air space. Reports keep coming in and at any given time, there is considerable amount of paperwork involved.

However, the ATC centres, the DGCA and the air defence surveillance centres are not linked by computer. Thus when a pilot entering Indian air space radios his call sign allotted by the DGCA, the ATC has to con-firm whether the aircraft has clearance to fly over the country. This is done by manually leafing through the mountains of messages that are sent from the DGCA. According to ATC officials, it sometimes takes up to 10 minutes to locate a particular DGCA message. With about 27 flights flying over India and an equal number landing or taking off, the task before an overworked ATC is not an enviable one.

Ordinarily, both civil and air defence systems have similar functions. But the unwritten law is that one shall not interfere with the other. Only if an airplane loses its way entirely or deviates off its main route is the ATC expected to immediately alert the IAF surveillance station or what is known as the Air Force Movement Liaison Cell (AFMLC). This cell is the official link between the civilian and defence air control.

One of the conclusions arrived at by the expert committee looking into air surveillance is that the ATC has to have more manpower and better infrastructure. Linking the ATC with the DGCA and air surveillance centres through computers is one suggestion which is to be immediately implemented. "Basically, on-the-spot surveillance has to be undertaken by the ATCs. I can impose more conditions on flights coming in, but physical inspection is something that only the ATC can do," says the Director General of Civil Aviation H.S. Khola.

The AN-26 aircraft involved in the dropping of arms in Purulia seems to have taken full advantage of the gaps in the surveillance system. Thus while entering Indian air space near Madras, the aircraft's pilot clearly misused the code allotted to it by the DGCA and the ATC officer at Madras airport failed to verify if the code, YA/338/12 AV-14014/18/95-ATT, was an authentic one and whether it permitted the plane to land at Madras.

According to Madras' ATC officials, there was no communique from the DGCA relating to the flight since Madras was not on the original flight plan. Efforts to call the DGCA in Delhi for verification failed since no official was available on the phone. The plane which had taken off from Phuket on December 21 at 3.25 pm, landed at Madras at 8.49 pm well after the DGCA closed. Officials point out that the situation would have been different if there was a computer link between the various agencies. Also, the security angle had not been stressed and cargo charters are not viewed with suspicion ever since the Open Sky policy came into effect.

BUT, point out investigating officials, computerisation alone can't solve the problem. There is no explanation why the ATC at Calcutta failed to note that the aircraft had strayed from its path. Similarly, the ATCs at Ranchi and Patna as well as the air defence surveillance centres at Kalaikonda failed to take note of the slow and lumbering cargo plane, which flies slower than a Canberra and cannot have strayed from its flight plan unnoticed. The mystery deepens by the day. Curiously enough, the aircraft returned to India after the arms drop when the pilot could have taken off from Phuket and flown back to Karachi via Colombo. To add to the intrigue, intelligence officials have been quoted as saying that an Indian operator who was on the plane, and had disembarked at Calcutta, had phoned the pilot at Phuket two days after the arms drop. Would he not have asked the crew to avoid India on the return flight? The only possible explanation being offered by investigators is that the crew flew to Madras to collect the pay-off. If this is true then who was financing the operation?

The theories being offered are many. The official one is that the ISI masterminded the operation, the crew were hired mercenaries and the arms were meant for insurgents in the North-east. The West Bengal government, on the other hand, feels that the arms were for the Ananda Margis. However, the central investigating agencies discount this since the Ananda Marg has not been militant for the last 10 years and is not known to use heavy weaponry like anti-tank missiles, rocket launchers and AK assault rifles.

Another line of thinking attributes the operation to a RAW exercise gone awry. Former RAW officials confirm that the agency is known to hire mercenary units from the CIS countries. Also, it has its own fleet of AN-32 aircraft and helicopters which fly with civilian markings. While there is no hard evidence to prove the RAW involvement, if the investigations are capped, it could mean that the Government has some unpleasant things to hide.

Whatever the outcome, the AN-26 incident has exposed the chinks in our air surveillance procedures and intelligence covers. RAW now claims that it had advance information about the arms drop but failed to communicate this to the West Bengal government in time. The RAW warning came a day after the weapons were discovered by the villagers in Purulia. A complete overhaul of surveillance and security is what the Government is thinking of and, obviously, the sky's the limit.