CAAP willing to face probe over PH airspace shutdown mess

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) is willing to face external investigations over the malfunctioning of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport’s (NAIA)’s air traffic management system that resulted in Philippine airspace shutdown and affected over 56,000 flights on New Year’s Day alone, a CAAP official said Wednesday. 

“Our internal investigation is ongoing, and we will try to complete it as soon as possible. If there will be an external investigation, we will welcome it,” CAAP Deputy Director General for Operations Edgardo Diaz said in an interview with CNN Philippines.

“Based on our initial internal investigation, we had a power failure that caused the shutdown of our Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) System, which is used by our controllers as visibility of planes in our airspace. There’s something wrong with the uninterruptible power supplies (UPS). Our engineers are looking into it,” Diaz added.

Diaz made the position on the same day that House Deputy Minority Leader Bernadette Herrera of Bagong Henerasyon party-list sought for a joint Senate and House probe on the malfunctioning of the country’s air traffic management system. 

“An incident as massive as this service outage at NAIA air traffic control deserves a joint Senate and House investigation. The service outage affected not just passengers but also many tons of cargo, incoming and outgoing, and this has lingering effects on businesses and the economy,” Herrera said in a statement.

“We need to see the authenticated copies of all maintenance logs, personnel logs, and CCTV logs of all the outage-affected equipment. We are particularly interested in whether the many lightning storms these past months affected any of the facilities and equipment involved in the service outage,” she added.

Maintenance check was done

CAAP’s Diaz said that the country’s CNS/ATM system, which went operational in 2018 during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, is a 2010 model and that the CAAP is constantly upgrading it since then.

In addition, Diaz said that a maintenance check was done last December 31.

“This year, it will serve its purpose for as long as we continue to pour into its maintenance program,” Diaz said.

Diaz also maintained that CAAP was able to respond accordingly to the Philippine airspace shutdown situation, saying they have a quick response in place for such a scenario.

“Have we considered such a situation happening? Yes. Just to give you an example, what happens when there is an earthquake? What would happen then? We are prepared for that,” Diaz said.

“That [scenario] happened on January 1 when there was a power failure, and we lost communication and surveillance. Our controllers have contingency plan and used the system before we had CNS-ATM and they were able to control the airplanes, the airspace, and fielded flights to safety. We have a contingency plan when CNS-ATM shuts down,” Diaz said.

Diaz, however, conceded that the government should buy a newer model of CNS-ATM system going forward.

“There is a desire [within our ranks] to have another CNS-ATM system which is not located here in Manila so that if this one [in Manila] fails, we will have another [functioning equipment],” Diaz said.

“The new one will be the primary system, and the one we have now will be the one for standby,” he added. 

Probe

Meanwhile, Senators Risa Hontiveros and JV Ejercito filed two separate resolutions seeking an investigation into the NAIA air traffic mess on January 1.

In her resolution, Hontiveros said a thorough probe should be conducted to identify both the proximate and contributory causes of the incident, determine the liabilities of government officials and private contractors, and ensure that measures are in place to prevent a similar or worse scenario in the future.

"While the DOTr has apparently ruled out sabotage, the breakdown of both the primary and secondary source of power throws into question the capacity of our air traffic control system to withstand cyber attacks and hacking, and exposes our vulnerability to such hostile incursions," she said.

For Hontiveros, what's "mind-boggling" is that government officials had already known that the outdated air control system in NAIA was "in danger of conking out any time" and this issue was supposedly raised at a Cabinet meeting yet no concrete plans had been made for upgrade or improvement of the facility.

Further, the lawmaker said that it is also imperative to identify the private contractor of the CNS/ATM to determine if there was a violation of the performance guarantee as may possibly seen through an examination of Commission on Audit documents and investigate allegations of funding delays and possible corruption in the establishment of the system, considering the long interval between the initial negotiations in February 2010 and the inauguration of the CNS/ATM in 2018.

She also mentioned the need to scrutinize the allegations that the P13 billion for the CNS/ATM was diverted to "cosmetic projects" during the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, the negligence in the maintenance of the equipment, and even possible human error.

Ejercito said that there is a need to inquire into the state and integrity of the country's Air Traffic Management System (ATMC) to determine if there is a need to upgrade and modernize the system and prevent similar incidents in the future.

Similar to Hontiveros' resolution, Ejercito said that the incident posed a serious national security concern where the territorial integrity of the country might have been jeopardized and the vulnerability of the country's air navigation system exposed.

"It is alarming and disturbing that this kind of glitch--loss of communication, radio, radar and internet access, can happen in the country's main airport, affecting not only the safety of airline passengers, but also of businesses, tourism, national security and the country's image to the whole world," Ejercito said.

Apart from Hontiveros and Ejercito, Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva, Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr. also filed separate resolutions seeking an inquiry into the NAIA air traffic fiasco.— RSJ, GMA Integrated News