Work on runway expansion to be completed next month
Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Mar 27: Jammu Airport will have night landing facility by 31st of May, this year as work on the same is all set to begin with finishing of ongoing runway expansion project, which is likely to be completed within a month .
Official sources told the Excelsior that almost 93 percent work on the runway expansion has been completed and the remaining work, which includes construction of 200 feet airstrip and earth filling, is likely to be finished before the end of next month.
As soon as the ongoing work on runway expansion and re-surfacing of existing airstrip is completed, installing of lighting system will begin for night landing facility at Jammu Airport with a deadline of May 31, 2021 for finishing the task, sources added.
The expanded runway with night landing facility will strengthen flight safety measures at Jammu Airport and facilitate increased air traffic and landing of big air buses.
The current length of Jammu Airport runway is 6700 feet, which is being expanded to 8000 feet. Work on the runway expansion is going on since 2019 and total cost of the project is Rs 159 crore while the night landing facility will be made available with additional cost of Rs two crores. Airport Authority of India (AAI) is executing both the projects.
According to the sources, major work pending in the runway expansion project is earth filling. To fill the ditches adjoining runway and level surfacing of the 59 acre land acquired for the project, around 40 thousand cubic meters earth is required for which mining permission has been sought from the Department of Geology and Mining, sources explained.
“Once the mining permission is secured from Government, the earth filling work will be immediately started and the pending work on the runway expansion will simultaneously go on, sources added.
Thereafter, sources further informed, work on re-fixing of existing runway lights and installation of new lights for night landing facility will begin as soon as the ongoing work on runway expansion and resurfacing of the existing airstrip by the India Air Force is completed.
The night landing facility is the runway approach lighting system, which includes a series of light bars with strobe lights installed at the end of the runway. Such a system serves a runway that is equipped with an Instrument Landing System (ILS), which has already been installed and commissioned at Jammu Airport. Besides ILS, it is important to have lighting along the runway edge, so that pilots landing at night are able to make visual contact and align the aircraft with the centre of the runway.
When contacted, Director Jammu Airport, P R Beuria confirmed that ongoing work on runway expansion is nearing completion and night landing facility will also be made available by the end of May 2021.
“The work is going on with full pace for completion of the project as early as possible and once the night landing facility is also added to the extended runway, Jammu Airport can have early morning and late evening flights besides landing of large aircrafts like Airbus-A 300,” he said.
Presently, flights landing at the Jammu Airport cannot fly with full load as it has only 6,700-foot-long runway, which forces the aircraft to use emergency brakes at the time of landing.
It may be recalled that on June 9, 2017, there was a narrow escape when four tyres of Air India flight with 134 passengers on board, burst on the runway while landing. Fortunately, there was no loss of life or injuries to any passenger as flight stopped just near boundary wall of the airport.
Work on the runway expansion was started in 2019 and it was scheduled to be completed in June last year but missed the deadline because of Covid pandemic conditions and also due to non-availability of construction aggregate like sand, stones etc on account of ban on mining along river beds in Jammu.
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