I’m a little miffed. ABC Radio Australia carried this copyrighted story yesterday:
Last Updated 25/04/2007, 22:56:30
Under a new plan released today, Indonesia’s neighbours would take over control of its air traffic, if its aircraft tracking system fails.
The plan for Indonesia’s air traffic control system has been developed, after a series of recent plane disasters claimed more than 100 lives.
AFP reports that a senior transport ministry official has stated that two centres would assume control of air traffic in Indonesia under the proposal, in an effort to streamline the system.
Under the plan, if natural disasters or mechanical faults close down both centres in the capital Jakarta and Makassar in south Sulawesi, then Singapore, Malaysia and other neighbours would step in until the problems are resolved.
Full details, including technical arrangements between the countries and when it would take effect, are yet to be finalised.
Well, um, no.
First of all, this plan has been openly under development for quite some time. In fact, the draft version of the plan that I have is dated mid-2006. Second, this has nothing to do with “a series of recent plane disasters [that] claimed more than 100 lives,” and it’s insulting to imply that such is the case.
Here’s what the Forward from the first draft of the Plan says:
The Indonesian territory, which comprises an archipelago of some 17,500 islands extending about 5000 kms mainly in an east/west direction, is located in a major earthquake zone with many active volcanoes. A major earthquake could strike at any time causing serious damage to civil aviation and air navigation services, facilities and infrastructure. With two major ACCs located at Jakarta for the west region and Makassar for eastern region, it is considered highly unlikely that both [facilities] would be out of service simultaneously. However, in the event that one ACC becomes inoperable, and ATS became unavailable, it would take several days to relocate and operate ATS from the remaining ACC and restore a more normal level of service. During this interim period, flight operations in Indonesia would be severely restricted.
So what we’ve got here is a civil aviation authority in one of the most geologically active areas in the world doing contingency planning because they know that they’re eventually going to have a problem, and ABC Radio Australia thinks it’s important to make mention of recent aircraft accidents in the country. Yes, yes, the ABC Radio Australia story does get back on track in noting that failures due to “natural disasters or mechanical faults” are behind the Plan, but I maintain, that the “ [the] plan for Indonesia’s air traffic control system has been developed, after a series of recent plane disasters claimed more than 100 lives” line is a cheap shot, and it has an unnecessary comma as well—how’s THAT for a cheap shot? ?
Anyway, the countries and FIRs/ACCs surrounding Indonesia, as noted in the draft Plan, are:
a) Australia
–Melbourne FIR (ACC)
–Brisbane FIR (ACC)
b) India
–Chennai FIR (ACC)
c) Malaysia
–Kota Kinabalu FIR (ACC)
–Kuala Lumpur FIR (ACC)
d) Singapore
–Singapore FIR (ACC)
e) Sri Lanka
–Colombo FIR (ACC)
f) United States of America
–Oakland FIR (ACC)
Here’s a image extracted from the draft plan, showing airspace and routes. As always, don’t use this for navigation…
So if you happen to run into anybody from Indonesia’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation, or the Directorate General of Air Communications, tell them “well-done.” Aviation thrives on this sort of planning.
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Hey! This airspace won’t control itself! Click on the image to see an excerpt from DAFIF Enroute Chart PAA13. The vertical line in the center of the image (running N-S through Semarang) separates the Jakarta FIR on the left from the Ujung Pandang FIR on the right, and runs off the bottom of the image to the southeast. The busy airspace on the west side of the image is the Jakarta area, and on east side, Malang.
