Less than a week after it was reported that the Kabul International Airport's landing system had been disabled for the past two months, Afghan aviation officials on Saturday announced that the system would be fixed in three weeks time.
TOLOnews ran a story on Monday in which the Director of the Kabul Airport, Afghanistan's major international hub, admitted that the Instrument Landing System (ILS) was dysfunctional and the airport had been relying on radars to manage incoming flights instead. Airport officials assured that their radar method was an acceptable alternative.
On Saturday, however, head of the Afghan Independent Aviation Department Mohammad Zahir said that the German company that first installed the system had been contacted and the 90,000 Euro price tag for fixing it would be covered by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
"The ILS will be reactivated in three weeks," Zahir said.
An ILS is a computerized ground-based instrument approach program that provides precision guidance to an aircraft approaching and landing on a runway. It is standard technology in small and large airports around the world.
Finding the funds to pay for the necessary repairs, which reportedly could only be done by the German company that originally installed the system, was the biggest obstacle Kabul Airport officials said was standing in their way. However, the ICAO, a branch of the United Nations, appears to have put that issue to rest just recently.
Zahir echoed airport officials on Saturday and assured that there had been no problems in landing incoming flights without the ILS over the past two months. He maintained the system was typically only used in emergency situations, two or three times a year, and that the more normal way of landing aircraft was with the radar method.
However, aviation experts that spoke to TOLOnews earlier this week expressed concerns about the lack of a functioning ILS and had said that it could cause problems for pilots.
On Saturday MPs urged the Aviation Department to get the landing system back on line quickly.
"An inactive system threatens the lives of passengers," said Farooq Majrooh. "It is the job of the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation to take it seriously and fix it."
The ILS was installed at the Kabul Airport ten years ago at reported cost of over two million USD.