The Air Traf­fic Con­trol Radar sys­tem at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port was in­op­er­a­tive when the pi­lot of a Jet­Blue Air­ways air­craft was forced to take eva­sive ac­tion to pre­vent a pos­si­ble col­li­sion with a Caribbean Air­lines air­craft on Sun­day.

This was con­firmed by the Di­rec­tor Gen­er­al of the T&T Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty Fran­cis Reg­is in an emailed re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

On Sun­day, Jet­Blue flight 1817 was fly­ing at 4,150 feet in an east­er­ly di­rec­tion over the Gulf of Paria on its fi­nal ap­proach to Pi­ar­co at 12.34 pm, when it in­formed the tow­er that Caribbean Air­lines flight 521 was on a tra­jec­to­ry to cross its path at near­ly the same al­ti­tude.

“The TTCAA con­firms that there was a traf­fic in­ci­dent which is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the TTCAA,” Reg­is stat­ed.

With in­ci­dents like the near col­li­sion, an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is launched to de­ter­mine the root cause and to make rec­om­men­da­tions to pre­vent a re­cur­rence.

“We fur­ther con­firm that the radar sys­tem was out of ser­vice at the time of the in­ci­dent,” he stat­ed.

Guardian Me­dia was in­formed by a source with knowl­edge of the sit­u­a­tion that the radar has been in­op­er­a­tive for a few weeks now, as it re­quires a part from the Ital­ian man­u­fac­tur­er to be­come op­er­a­tional.

The radar sys­tem was pur­chased with a pack­age of rec­om­mend­ed spare parts.

Reg­is yes­ter­day said that de­spite the is­sues with the radar, air traf­fic con­trollers have the sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol.

“The TTCAA wish­es to as­sure you and the pub­lic that all air traf­fic con­trollers are trained and qual­i­fied to pro­vide safe and re­li­able air nav­i­ga­tion ser­vices in the ab­sence of radar equip­ment,” Reg­is stat­ed.

Avi­a­tion ex­pert Ramesh Lutch­me­di­al yes­ter­day ex­plained to Guardian Me­dia what tran­spires in the case of a radar be­ing non-func­tion­al.

“They re­sort to Pro­ce­dur­al Air Traf­fic Con­trol. With this method, the pi­lots re­port their GPS po­si­tion, head­ing and al­ti­tude via two-way ra­dio to the con­troller who records it on a strip,” Lutch­me­di­al stat­ed.

“With radar, the con­troller can see where each air­craft is with the head­ing and al­ti­tude, al­so the radar soft­ware has a con­flict res­o­lu­tion fea­ture that red flags when­ev­er two air­craft breach the ver­ti­cal or hor­i­zon­tal sep­a­ra­tion min­i­ma,” he stat­ed.

Lutch­me­di­al said what saved the day on Sun­day was that the on­board Traf­fic Col­li­sion Avoid­ance Sys­tems on each air­craft gave a res­o­lu­tion ad­vi­so­ry to the pi­lots to take eva­sive ac­tion.

The radar da­ta is archived and can be re­played dur­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.