Mangalore : The Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology Karnataka and Mangalore Airport Diamond Jubilee Celebration Committee are jointly organizing a Two Day Workshop on ‘Table Top Airports and Safety Aspects’ on October 29-30 at National Institute f Technology, said K Tejomaya, the chief coordinator of the Mangalore Airport Diamond Jubilee Celebration Committee.

He was speaking at the press meet held at Press Club on October 27, Thursday. He said that M Veerappa Moily, honourable minister for Corporate Affairs, Government of India will inaugurate the workshop on October 29, Saturday at 10 am.

He said that the workshop provides a platform for exchange of latest ideas and concepts concerning Table Top airports. The workshop would be of interest to all professionals, educationists, researchers’ associated with airports and navigation systems and the general public also.

In India, the Table top airport is in Calicut (Kerala), Lengpui (Mizoram), Kullu (Himachal Pradesh) and Leh (Laddakh). Further there are table top airports in Kabul (Afghanistan) and Kathmandu (Nepal) where Indian carriers land frequently. The fact that a tabletop airport has rarely been in the news for the wrong reasons goes on to show that operating on such airports is as safe and routine as on any other conventional airstrip.

A tabletop airport is essentially an airport surrounded by deep gorges. Normally constructed by chopping off the top of a hill, tabletop airports are often thought of as tricky for landing aircrafts because of the gorges all around the airport. The only thing a pilot has to do differently while landing on a tabletop aircraft is to disregard instruments like radio altimeters which give out auto-callouts. There are special procedure in place to deal with a tabletop landing and pilots who frequently land on tabletops do these landings almost effortlessly.

Mangalore’s airport tabletop came under sharp focus following the plane crash that killed 158 people. However, it is a fact that Runway 24 (on which the ill-fated IX-812 touched down) has handled over 32,000 successful landings since it was commissioned in 2006, which underlines the fact that landing a plane on the tabletop airstrip should not be a problem for pilots with normal training.

This two day workshop has been organized with the aim of clearing apprehensions in the minds of people about Table Top Airports. The workshop will also emphasize the need to extend the present runway in order to handle international flights and to upgrade the other facilities to international standards, he added.