Guyana to monitor entire airspace for first time ; radar required to spot illegal planes

Last Updated on Monday, 19 October 2015, 15:24 by GxMedia

Guyana will next month formally activate a total aeronautical surveillance system to improve the management of flying aircraft, but this will be unable to detect illegal planes in the country’s airspace.

The announcement was made Monday at tge opening of the Aviation Conference 2015.

Director General of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), Chitranie Heeralall told the opening of the conference the conference that the Aeronautical Surveillance system using Automatic Dependent Surveillance -Broadcast would to manage and ensure efficiency of the country’s airspace.

GCAA Director Rickford Samaroo told Demerara Waves Online News that local air traffic controllers have been recently trained and licensed in the use of the new automated system.

He said currently, the Automatic Dependent Surveillance -Broadcast is being used on a trial basis.

The official said unlike the manual system, the ADS-B would ensure greater safety and make Guyana compliant with International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) requirements.

He, however, said the new system would be unable to monitor the presence of illegal aircraft in Guyana’s airspace because only a radar system could provide such capacity. He noted that a radar system is very expensive to acquire and maintain.

Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo highlighted the importance of the ADS-B in search and rescue operations. ” I am further advised that we are on the threshold of introducing, for the first time, aeronautical surveillance service in Guyana using the advanced ADS-B, in the management of our National Airspace.

This technology will track aircraft that fly over our territory and will aid in Search and Rescue as it will provide a closer last-known position of aircraft that has the requisite on board equipment,” he said.

Guyana has in the past experienced grave difficulty in locating crashed aircraft in the dense jungle. In several cases, they have not been found and the occupants presumed dead.