Friday, March 27, 2009

Landing in fog at Tenerife North

Headlines such as "Los Rodeos closed by fog" should become a thing of the past in June this year, when the Tenerife North Airport gets a new and upgraded (from the current category I to a level II/III) Instrument Landing System (ILS) that will allow planes to make full instrument landings on autopilot.

The new system will require, amongst other things, special lighting on the runway and was to have been operative in the first quarter of the year, but this date has been delayed. Spanish airports authority, (AENA) have now announced the date of June 12th for the new system to come into operation.

There are very few Spanish airports (mostly those in the north of the country) that have the type of ILS system that Los Rodeos is to have and the principle reason is to reduce the number of disruptions to flights that have to be delayed, cancelled or diverted to other airports, when there is low visibility.

Los Rodeos already has ground radar installed to prevent occurrences like the 1977 runway incursion that took place, in fog, 32 years ago today.

Labels: Tenerife Disaster