AAI commences ILS signal testing at Navi Mumbai airport

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has commenced the ILS (Instrumental Landing System) signals testing at the under-construction Navi Mumbai International Airport, which is expected to start the first phase of operations by March 2025, sources said on Wednesday.

The exercise, which commenced from Tuesday is likely to continue till Saturday during which the AAI will test various aspects of the ILS operations at the runway, they said.

ILS is a precision runway approach aid based on two radio beams which together provide pilots with both vertical and horizontal guidance during an approach to land.

While the localiser component of the system provides lateral guidance such as whether an arriving aircraft is in alignment with the central line of the runway to a pilot, the glider path component of the system gives vertical guidance like altitude, said a source.

According to him, as many as 20 tests are carried out before the implementation of the ILS for operations.

During the exercise, aspects such as the accuracy of the signals and the accuracy of both horizontal and vertical guidance are tested for safe operations, the source said.

Calibration testing has been carried out successfully at Navi Mumbai International Airport, an airport official said.

Being developed by Adani Group, the Navi Mumbai International Airport project comprises five phases and will have a total handling capacity of 9-crore passengers per annum.

The first phase will have a capacity to handle 2-crore passengers per annum.