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Considering the length and breadth of Kerala, are not two airports in Trivandrum and Cochin enough?
P. S. Remesh Chandran
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum
Kerala currently has four airports namely Trivandrum, Cochin, Calicut and Kannur. All four are international airports. In this, Kannur is in the fall. As a result, it no longer has international status, has fewer flights, and does not have business like it used to have. Because is a matter of pride and convenience for the Marxist party and some foreign interests for many things, though the status is only in name, it is maintained as an airport even though there is no business. They need it for smuggling gold, among other things, among them drugs, diamonds, and other goods- from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Cuba. If you tell them that this happens regularly there, the current police officers in Kerala will ask if it is true and stand speechless, with wide gaping mouths, as if they are hearing this news for the first time. However, due to the intervention of many other officials, in other Central Government Departments, many of them are regularly caught, and the news of it comes out regularly. If you check the travel itinerary and passport stamps of these who are caught, you will get a glimpse of how organized and well party-and-government-supported it is and the deals and transactions of the Marxist party will come out- like the Cuban communist party’s involvements came out.
Of all the airports in Kerala, the Kannur Airport is the most dangerous, inconvenient and unnecessary airport in Kerala. It is a symbol of the arrogance, misuse of power and greed of the Marxist party in Kerala. Like making a taxi stand, an airport shall not be made, it must not be made, for some political leaders to step out of homes and board, like hailing a taxi, to perform a similar function! That airport is made at a place where it never should have been made. There the top preference is given not for Air Safety but for the pride, ostentation and vanity of the Marxist party leaders, in tacit accord with the Hindu theo-corporate Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Centre of course.
The Karipur airport of Calicut or Kozhikode also is made that way. It was proved in the last plane crash and many human deaths there, and the society paid a high price. It was a man who had more worth than that airport and the entire Marxist party who was lost in that airport disaster- the proudest and the most senior Captain in the Indian Air Force. It was not the fault of the plane, nor the fault of the pilot, but the combined fault of the location of the airport, its geography and weather that caused the accident- whatever be the politically-motivated inquiry reports saying about it. Listen to one of the songs of that immortal singer who we lost through airport politics this way! Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJWIkZkopWI
The Boeing 737-800 aircraft Air India Express Flight No. 1344 from Dubai carrying Indian Corona patients from all over the world as part of the Vande Bharat Mission crashing after landing and killing two pilots and nineteen passengers on 7 August 2020 at the Calicut airport was attempting to land twice in heavy rain and the third time landing and overrunning the runway due to inadequacies in the table top runway. Without enough length and breadth for the runway, with no space for safety and security borders for takeoff and landing in wet weather, with steep descents and inclines all along, it was designating this runway and the airport as critical airfield with hazardous conditions that the Director General of Civil Aviation had issued inviolable orders instructing that in such airfields the takeoffs and landings in wet weather should be done not by the First Officer but by the Captain himself.
Trivandrum Airport pre-dates India's independence. It was built by the King of Travancore. In 1935, the first aircraft flown and arrived in Trivandrum Airport was by none other than J. R. D. Tata, the owner of the Tatas who also started the Air India and handed it over to the Government of India when India got independence. No other airport in India has such a history. From that we can understand how far ahead Travancore was in such a long time past- just like the first Gravity-Driven Water Works in Kerala built by the king in Trivandrum. The main reason for that was that the kings of Travancore, like the kings of Kozhikode and Kochi, did not get easily excited and go and lay their heads to each war unnecessarily and get their people killed, and the treasury also did not waste money for such wars. So there was always money to build airports or even anything. In fact it was the surplus money that helped build the greatest underground treasure-chest in the world situated below the Sree Padmanabhaswami Temple in Trivandrum in sealed vaults as a future security and surety for the State of Travancore, which the present-day politicians are trying to bring out and steal. As Kozhikode and Kochi do not have any of such, there is no need to search for any other reason as to why Trivandrum has top foremost state-of-the-art institutions and universities of science and technology, including Star Observatories.
Trivandrum Airport has a 3400 meter runway and is only one kilometer away from the sea! In fact, it is the airport closest to the sea in India. In Kannur it is only 3050 meters! There is no room for more than that. You have to fly and land and touch the ground within that short distance- from whichever direction you are coming from and in whichever angle you are approaching! There there is no space for taking safety precautions by the airport authorities or by the pilots. Table-top airports like this are generally a mess, as almost all are not close to the sea and have no sea proximity. Generally, if there is an accident and the runway cannot be reached by the plane, the plane is landed in the sea to avoid landing in the middle of a city. It is not possible in Kannur. It was somehow built there by adjusting to what was there and compromising the standards and mandatory regulations, naming it a runway and an airport.
There are four other airports which are not for the public in Kerala belonging to the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force. Among the public airports and air fields, the one at Quilon stopped operation in 1920 itself as it was declared unsafe after an accident. Some in politics and government are still trying to revive it, for commissions. In Idukki there is the National Cadet Corps’ (NCC) Satram Airstrip. Three more are coming, one each in Sabarimala at Pathanamthitta in Kottayam, Tiruvampadi in Kozhikode, and Bekal in Kassaragodu. Is it safe to sit on the floor at home? Can anyone sit on the ground safe in his home anymore?
Runway length is 3407 meters in Trivandrum, 3445 meters in Kochi, 3050 meters in Kannur, and 2860 meters in Kozhikode. Kozhikode is also a tabletop runway like Kannur. In fact, except Trivandrum and Kochi, the two airports in Kerala have tabletop runways. What coming next also are tabletop runways. Although on paper the runway of the proposed airport at Sabarimala is supposed to be the largest in Kerala at 3500 meters that too is a tabletop runway. It is a big truth that as for pilots, aircraft and passengers they are not safe, in whichever direction they situate and position them. What is important in an airport other than runways? Was it because there is no sea at Kannur and Kozhikode and they are landlocked that they built these two airports in other narrow places and on hilltops than there as motivated by political and (real estate) business interests?
Tabletop runways, or 'Mesappuram' runways in Malayalam, are runways that are high above the ground that surrounds it and one or both ends of the runways end in a ditch. Would it be possible to install crash barriers on both sides of the runway to hold back fast-moving aircraft to contain them in places where there is no such space, like installing crash barriers on roadsides for land vehicles to prevent them from falling over? Even if installed, what materials could they be built with and installed? And what to do if one of them loses control and due to speed crashes the barrier and runs off the runway and goes into a ditch like what happened in Kozhikode? This airplane at Kozhikode was split into two.
Apart from these two in Kerala, the other five table top runways India has are one in Mangalore in Karnataka, two in Himachal Pradesh and one each in Mizoram and Sikkim. On 18 November 2022, the Director General of Civil Aviation reported that following many accidents, human deaths and aircraft losses, including the then-latest in Mangalore, the entire air safety of these desktop runways in India would be re-examined. It was mired in airport politics.
Written on 09 August 2020 and first published on: 09 July 2024
Original article in Malayalam written on 09 August 2020 and first published on: 04 July 2023
SM1347. കേരളത്തി൯റ്റെ നീളവുംവീതിയുംവെച്ചുനോക്കുമ്പോളു് തിരുവനന്തപുരത്തും കൊച്ചിയിലും രണു്ടുവിമാനത്താവളങ്ങളു്പോരേ?
https://sahyadrimalayalam.blogspot.com/2023/07/1347.html
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