Test flights endanger lives of Bangaloreans living in flight path

The crash of the prototype of Intermediate Jet Trainer (IJT) at in Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu just after take-off from HAL airport at 3.10 pm on Thursday should be a grim reminder of the existing threat to residential areas in Bangalore.

Koramangala, Wilson Garden, Basavanagudi, Banashankari, Visveswarapuram, Bytarayanapura, Shankarapuram, Vijayanagar and Kempegowdanagar fall right under the flight path of HAL airport.

On December 23, 2008, as part of HAL’s Founding Day celebrations, the Indian Air Force’s six-aircraft aerobatics team, Surya Kiran, conducted a breathtaking ‘bomb-burst’ aerial manoeuvre. This manoeuvre claimed two naval pilots in the ill-fated Kiran aircraft, alongside a resident of Hyderabad in March 2010.

On that day, one of the aircraft came within a dangerous 100-m distance of the crowded Garuda Mall located in the Central Business District.

Several crashes close to the airport or in its flight path have raised questions about the safety of residents living in densely populated areas in the vicinity of HAL airport.

Since 1990, there have been six such disasters involving aircraft and helicopters taking off from or landing at the HAL airport but, fortunately, none landed on any populous locality.

A major concern now is that after commercial flight operations shifted to BIA in Devanahalli, the frequency of military test flights has increased at the HAL airport. “There is always a degree of uncertainty during test flights,” said an expert from the National Flight Test Centre (NFTC). “But we carry out the tests at least 50 nautical miles south or south-east of Bangalore so that it does not take place over residential areas.”

However, a closer look at the air accident trends at the HAL airport reveals that most of these have occurred while landing or just after taking off.

Officials of the Aircraft Systems and Testing Establishment (ASTE) and NFTC, the two main organisations that conduct test flights, argue that testing facilities at the HAL airport came up much before the residential areas surrounding the airport.

Air Marshal (Retd) Philip Rajkumar, former director, light combat aircraft (LCA) programme and aviation expert, asked, “What can be done if areas surrounding the airfield were allowed to have residential areas?”

Pete Field, former director, US Naval Test Pilot School, going by similar experiences cities in the US have had, told DNA via email: “It is important for local authorities to zone approach and landing corridors of already established airports so that the land use underneath the corridors disallows residential construction. The local community should voice objections to the Bangalore authorities to see if there are flight-approach corridors that offer less risk to the citizenry.”