NAIA controllers balk at 'defective' air traffic system

MANILA, Philippines - Air traffic controllers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) are claiming they are being forced by the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) to use a new air traffic control system that was found to have “numerous defects” when it was tested over the past year.

In a position paper sent to the DOTC, a copy of which was provided The STAR, the Philippine Air Traffic Controllers Association (PATCA) expressed its concern over the move by the DOTC and the CAAP to push ahead with the full commissioning of the P511-million Manila Area Control Center (MACC) despite alleged deficiencies found in the system.

PATCA said the CAAP’s own Aerodrome Air Navigation Safety Oversight Office (AANSOO) has filed an audit report on the MACC in April, declaring that it found a number of safety violations and that the system does not meet international standards.

“The system that we are using up to this present day is still the Eurocat 200, the old system that shut down in September 2009. It was developed during the early 1990s by Thales, a reputable name in the aviation world. It has proven its capability and dependability in the past years. Maybe it has reached its maximum usability and really needs to be replaced,” PATCA said.

The association said the CAAP decided to replace the Eurocat 200 with the MACC, also known as the ALS 2.1, which was developed by CS-Soft, a firm based in Czechoslovakia. “As of today, CS-Soft has yet to prove its name in the development of reliable and dependable air traffic management systems,” PATCA said.

The group said they “have been questioning the safety of the system for almost a year now and as far as we are concerned, we do not want to be held liable for any conflict that may happen during the operation of ALS. We know how bad the penalties will be and our conscience will never be at peace if tragedy occurs. And the hardest part is we are only obliged to follow orders. Our hands are tied and we cannot do anything to resist them. We are afraid that we might lose our jobs if we resist them.”

Sudden reboots

In its paper, PATCA cited numerous “incidents” since August 2010, when the testing of the MACC started. The system is still being tested, especially with the DOTC pushing for its full commissioning.

PATCA said its members described the MACC’s computer systems as “inconsistent” and “unreliable” because the computer would reportedly suddenly reboot itself for no reason, which prevents air traffic controllers from monitoring international and domestic flights.

Another serious flaw, according to the group, is a defect in the electronic strips, which contain information on a particular flight, including its coordinates and altitude. “An e-strip is a representation of aircraft in flight with respect to its position, altitude and its route of flight. These strips are arranged in a manner that the ATC (air traffic controller) on duty will be able to picture out the actual traffic situation on his sector,” PATCA said.

The group said in the MACC, the data presented in the e-strip “is not credible. This has been proven by (controllers) who have rendered duty on the… system. The altitudes on the strips tend to change themselves according to the altitude in their flight plan.”

The first “serious” incident reportedly took place on Sept. 15, 2010, when there was “cluttering” in the radar tags of the aircraft during peak hours, according to PATCA. “Two aircraft coming from the north of Manila going to south were ‘in traffic’ due to non-display of radar target of one aircraft and cluttering of radar tags. ATC (air traffic controllers) were busy giving vectors to traffic arriving and departing from Manila plus the multiple tasks to be done on the keyboard of the sector controller. System is not mouse-dependent like the old system in use,” the group said.

Developer: Audit deficient

Officials of the consortium led by CS-Soft belied alleged deficiencies in the air traffic management (ATM) system it has set up for the Philippines, questioning the technical expertise of the CAAP-AANSOO audit personnel who inspected the MACC on April 11 to 15.

Allan Ortencio – chief technical officer of the joint venture consortium of CS Soft Inc., Revere Construction & Supply and Enhanced Electronic Communication Services – said the AANSOO failed to observe oversight audit requirements of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and its audit team’s members have no expertise in auditing an ATM system.

“They have conducted a deficient audit. They came unannounced, in violation of audit protocols set by the ICAO itself,” Ortencio told The STAR in an interview.

Ortencio said the CAAP-AANSOO audit team did not include a member familiar with Area Control Center (ACC) operations.

Revere Construction head Manolo Maralit, who was present during one of the audit “visits” of the AANSOO team, said the auditors had failed to make actual technical inspections of the MACC nerve center as well as its facilities. He alleged that the inspectors only made demands to get copies of documents showing the technical specifications of the project.

Since the AANSOO audit team was unscheduled and highly suspicious, Maralit said he declined to give the documents. “If they really wanted to make a technical audit, then they should have looked at the MACC operations center and checked if all the equipment and facilities are actually working and operational,” he told The STAR.

Maralit said that a quick check of the MACC would show that it was already operational and will not fail once it is fully commissioned. “We’re just waiting for clearance to finally commission the MACC but we have already made several tests for several months already,” he said.

Maralit also denied there were irregularities in the award of the contract to their consortium, saying there was a proper public bidding conducted by the DOTC for the original P290 million project.

Ortencio said the cost was increased by P220 million to set up Phase 2 of the project, which involves longer range communications. He said it was “very reasonably priced” since the upgraded communications systems expanded the radar coverage of the Manila ACC, allowing it to monitor aircraft from as far away as the West Philippine Sea and the Spratly islands, which was previously impossible.

DOTC Secretary Jose de Jesus had earlier expressed his support for the commissioning of the MACC, saying the deficiencies found by the CAAP’s AANSOO can be corrected in 90 days.