Trials for dedicated helicopter corridors at the Mumbai airport are set to begin next week, a senior airport official has confirmed.

The trials, the official hoped, would be followed by a corridor being finally set up, which would ease congestion at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA). “If all works well, the corridors should be approved in about three to four months,” the official said.

The proposal for dedicated helicopter corridors has been pending for three years, as reported by Newsline in May. The official highlighted the problems caused by the absence of such corridors. “For every helicopter that takes of from the Juhu airport and crosses over the Mumbai airport, flight movements are slowed down and arrivals are affected.”

With Juhu airport barely a kilometre from CSIA, any chopper taking off from there has to first navigate in another direction because of constant flight movements at the Mumbai airport, the official said.

“The main runways at Juhu and CSIA are in the same direction,” the official said. The Santacruz airport’s main runway is at 27 degrees; that at Juhu airport is at 26 degrees.

“So whenever a helicopter takes off from Juhu, it can intrude into the flight path of an aircraft taking off from Santacruz,” said the official. “The aircraft would be ascending at about 3,000 feet per minute and the helicopter would be at a mere 500 feet,” he conceded, but added, “It is still not accepted as safe.”

In May, the Airport Authority of India had issued a policy direction to airports in metros to fix entry and exit points to avoid mishaps during landing and takeoff of helicopters. The issue was highlighted nationally in February, when a chopper from President Pratibha Patil’s fleet was involved in a near-collision with an Air India commercial flight.

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