India is to make it compulsory for aircraft being operated in its airspace to be equipped with a traffic-alert and collision-avoidance System (TCAS-II).
Director-general of civil aviation, H S Khosla, says that the move is a result of the November 1996 mid-air collision over New Delhi between a Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazak Ilyushin Il-76.
It will be compulsory for airlines to equip all their aircraft with a TCAS-II by 31 December, 1998. The system has so far been installed in just 17 of Air India's 747s and two Boeing 737s recently imported by Jet Airways. The rules also specify that, after 31 December, aircraft with more than 30 seats which do not have TCAS can no longer be imported.
Source: Flight International
