M A I N   N E W S

Ropeways pose threat to aircraft
By Vijay Mohan
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Jan 12 — With the Himachal Pradesh Government having taken virtually no action for over a year to identify and mark makeshift ropeways strung across valleys, these continue to pose hazard to flying.

Two Army aviators were killed in an air crash in Sangla Valley on Divali, 1998, after their chopper got entangled in one such ropeway while on a sortie to assist troops stranded during a long-range patrol in the Himalayas. Following this accident, the Army had approached the State Government to mark such objects so that they were visible from a safe distance.

“Nothing has been done so far despite repeated communiqués,” a source said. “The matter has been taken up repeatedly and the issue was discussed again with the HP Government representative at the Civil-Military Liaison Conference last week,” he added.

Sources say that the most effected area is the air-route to Puh — headquarters of the formation responsible for the defence of Himachal against China — where there are about 30 makeshift ropeways. These are used to transport goods across the valley.

The growing number of orchards and farms in the upper regions of Himachal Pradesh as well as a vast network of transmission lines emerging from large-scale hydel power projects has resulted in pylons and cables springing up in almost every nook of the region.

The Army wants that such ropeways and pylons should be marked with luminous paint and streamers which would be visible from a distance and serve as navigational and flight safety aids. Many of them are in close vicinity of helipads. In addition to a large number of tactical helipads, there are 10 helipads in that area to which regular sorties are undertaken. Aviators say that manoeuvring around cables and pylons in restricted space is particularly precarious when descending during approach to a helipad.

Sources say that it is the responsibility of the civil agencies to identify and mark these safety hazards, but no information in this regard has been forwarded to the Army so far. “We are not concerned if these ropeways are legal or not. It is a State Government subject. Our only concern is that the installation of the requisite safety measures should be expedited,” an Army Aviation Corps (AAC) officer commented.

Among other tasks, AAC squadrons on the ORBAT of western Command are responsible for providing logistics and communications support to Army units based in Himachal Pradesh and to conduct search and rescue missions in the mountains. During winters or monsoons, when snow or landslides cut off land routes, choppers are the only means of communication with far-flung outposts.

As per standard operating procedures, a helicopter has to maintain visual contact with the ground on account of limited navigational aids. Though normal cruising altitude is maintained above mountains, choppers may have to descend into a valley due to adverse weather conditions. Flying to Puh from one of the AAC bases in Punjab takes one and a half to two hours. The weather changes at high altitude are at times as frequent as every one or two hours, which may force a chopper to descend below a cloud or to alter course.

Unpredicted weather changes or alteration of flight parameters even if stretched beyond operational capability can be tackled with skill and presence of mind. “But what overcomes all this are unknown obstructions appearing out of the blue with little scope for evasive action,” an AAC officer commented.

A significant aspect of flying in the mountains is that AAC choppers, unlike fixed wing aircraft, are in radio contact with the ground only in the vicinity of a helipad and not at all times. Since they are presently equipped only with VHF/UHF radios which limit communication, there is no way of knowing a chopper’s flight status.