October 18, 2013
In India’s western state of Maharashtra, a newly completed air traffic control (ATC) tower at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport was formally introduced to the public. This airport serves Maharashtra’s capital city of Mumbai.
At the time of its debut, this ATC tower — with a height of 274.9 feet (83.8 meters) –was the tallest one in India. This record was broken in 2017 with the opening of a 334.3-foot (101.9-meter)-tall ATC tower at Indira Gandhi International Airport in the vicinity of India’s capital of New Delhi.
The new ATC tower at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport was built to replace a tower that was 236.2 feet (72 meters) in height and had been in operation since 1999. The older structure had proven to be more obstructive than helpful for major airlines seeking to use the airport; among other things, that tower was too close to one of the runways and not in full compliance with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards.
Along with being taller and more technologically advanced, the new ATC tower was seen as having other key advantages. These included the fact that it was constructed over a space of 30,139 square feet (2,800 square meters) that is further away from the airport’s runways and therefore an overall upgrade with respect to air traffic control safety. One of the results of this was that air traffic controllers were now able to see five miles (eight kilometers) beyond the thresholds of each of the airport’s runways.
The public officials on hand for the Friday inauguration of the new tower included Ajit Singh, India’s minister of civil aviation from 2011 and 2014; and Prithviraj Chavan, chief minister of Maharashtra between 2010 and 2014. Over the next few months, there was an extensive transitioning for air traffic controllers and other personnel from the old ATC tower to its replacement. Jayant Dasgupta, the airport’s ATC general manager, discussed this painstaking process in an interview at the time with the Mumbai Mirror.
“It has been a challenge to shift operation on such a scale,” said Dasgupta. “The exercise has been difficult with staffers having to put in extra hours of work as both towers had to be manned simultaneously.” He also noted, however, “Due to its height and location, the new tower will ensure better surveillance.” The new structure became the airport’s sole ATC tower on January 1, 2014. Its predecessor was demolished later that year, with the site used to help accommodate additional taxiways and a new secondary runway.
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, which was named after a 17th century Indian ruler, ranks second only to Indira Gandhi International Airport as the country’s busiest airport in terms of both total and international passenger traffic. In addition, Chhatrapati Shivaj Mahara International Airport is the ninth busiest airport in Asia and the 25 busiest in the world when it comes to passenger traffic.
Photo Credit: Yatrik Sheth (https://www.flickr.com/people/86567052@N06) — licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
For more information on the present-day air traffic control tower at Chhatrapati Shivaj Maharaj International Airport, please check out https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/tallest-in-india-new-atc-tower-to-boost-mumbai-air-traffic-113101800908_1.html and https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/mumbai/other/air-traffic-control-shifts-to-new-tower/articleshow/28200313.cms?
Additional information on airports in Maharashtra is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_in_Maharashtra
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