Jakarta airport radar breaks down twice

March 22, 2004

Jakarta airport radar breaks down twice 
Business Times Singapore

(JAKARTA) Several flights in and out of Indonesia's
main airport, Soekarno-Hatta International Airport,
near here, had to be delayed when it was hit by
another malfunction of its radar system on Friday, the
second in two days. 

The officer-in-charge of the airport, Ahmad Rusdi,
said the failure occurred at 8am local time but the
radar operations were restored an hour later. Sixteen
domestic flights and two international flights were
delayed due to the radar breakdown, he said. 

Mr Ahmad said air traffic controllers were forced to
switch to the manual system to guide the landing and
take-off of aircraft during the breakdown. 

On Thursday, some 60 flights were affected as bad
weather and heavy rain blanked out radar screens from
12.50pm, leaving air traffic controllers unable to
access key flight data.

Air traffic returned to normal about two hours later
using the manual system, with the radar back in full
operation at about 5pm. 

The airport's operator, PT Angkasa Pura, dismissed
speculation that the malfunction might be due to
sabotage in an attempt to disrupt the forthcoming
general election on April 5.

The company's spokesman, Syarial Syam, said that the
air traffic control site was well guarded and out of
the public area. - Bernama


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