May Day In July March 3, 2006

After finishing a quick dinner, when air traffic controller A S Shekhar walked up the narrow staircase leading to the radar room on the other side of Bangalore airport’s main runway, his mind was not focused on anything special. He was a content man. The fifth child of an accounts officer of the state electricity board, Shekhar was brought up all over the place. After high school, he could not make it to an engineering college. Instead he joined a polytechnic. There, he did his diploma in mechanical engineering and then joined the public sector Hindustan Aeronautics. After spending a few years inspecting Avro engines, he shifted to safety and maintenance. Eight years later, an internal advertisement for air traffic controllers shifted him finally from what he ‘wanted to be’, to what he was ‘meant to be’. Inside the radar room tonight, things looked normal. The occasional babble on the radio telephone and the bright blue blip of the radar as it scanned 200 miles of radial distance around the runway, running north to south, was how everything should be. It was Shekhar’s world. On the radar, there wasn’t much happening. There were just three aircraft that had taken off a while ago and were well past his oversight. He was aware of them but stayed focused on the mandatory sixty miles of approach control. It was at that moment, that everything changed. A Jet Airways 737 flight with a call sign JAI 411 called in. “Bangalore Control, JAI 411. Maintaining flight level 250. Estimating EBIPA at 2310’’, the voice over the radio telephone broke off. Flight level 250 meant that the aircraft was at 25,000 feet and at this time, crossing Belgaum. A little later, the captain would start descent for final approach to Bangalore. Shekhar felt a twitch. Had he not read the log, in which the Boeing 737 was cleared for 29,000 feet? What on earth was he doing at 25,000 feet? He did not realise the sweat already forming on his forehead as he asked the captain to affirm altitude. “Maintaining flight at 250’’, came the calm answer. Shekhar’s head exploded. Just before going to dinner, he had cleared Mumbai-bound Lufthansa’s cargo aircraft DLH 8414 that was right in the flight path of JAI 411, as it was gaining altitude. It had been cleared assuming that JAI 411 was going to maintain 29,000 feet. By an inadvertent error, Shekhar had not been made aware of a ‘reclearance’ by Chennai Air Traffic Control to JAI 411 for 250. Shekhar’s chest began pounding, even as he did the mental math. JAI 411 and DLH 8414 were on a collision path. They were both away from each other by a distance that the aircraft would cover in three minutes and ram into each other. Shekhar’s voice was trained to remain calm. He frantically called the Lufthansa flight to radio position. The captain replied that he was crossing 215 for cruise at 260. “Bangalore to DLH 8414—level off at 215’’, Shekhar shouted. Then he repeated the intent, “Recleared at 215’’. The captain of the cargo jetliner found that a strange order. It was his time to keep climbing but the controller was asking him to level off! He shrugged. “Affirm levelling off at 215’’, he returned. Approximately 100 miles from Bangalore, aboard the Jet Airways flight at 25,000 feet, unaware that he had been born again, the middleaged father of three kids on seat 9C, took one more longing look at the pretty air hostess and sighed. Shekhar handed over control to his assistant, stepped out of the dark radar room and stood in silence. In front of him was the eerie calm of the night sky of Bangalore. After a few weeks of the event that never took place on the night of July 10, 1997, the departmental letter of appreciation arrived. It came with no public ovation, his salary and perquisites did not change. He was not feted by the President. Not that it mattered; to Shekhar, a deputy manager with HAL, his work is his reward. Atop the control tower, he is the master of all he surveys. It is his word that rules. It is time for me to leave. I am catching the Deccan flight to Chennai this morning and it is due to leave in another half an hour. As I shake hands with Shekhar, I ask another air traffic controller on duty, “When are you giving a push back to the Deccan Aviation flight bound for Chennai?’’ Without taking his eye off the runway, the man replies “Only after you are on board, sir.’’ Stepping out of the control tower, I ask myself, if it is not pride, whatever else really brings out the best in us? Source : http://digvijayankoti.blogspot.in/2009/04/subroto-bagchi-speaks-all-articles-by.html