Director of Kabul Airport Mohammad Yaqoob Rasouli on Monday disclosed that the Instrument Landing System (ILS) of the airport, which is used for managing the landing of incoming flights, has been disabled for the past two months.
"ISAF said the system can't make contact with planes and is inactive..." explained Rasouli. "We have told the airlines to use another system because the Instrument Landing System is not working, and right now we have two radars that can guide the planes."
ILS technology is standard in small to large airports around the world. And despite Rasouli's apparent comfort with getting by without it, experts suggest that could be risky for incoming flights.
"Landings will be problematic for pilots if the system doesn't work," Afghan aviation expert Daoud Sultanzoi told TOLOnews.
But according to Rasouli, getting the ILS back online is not a minor undertaking.
Reportedly, only the people who produced and installed the system would be able to fix it again, and Rasouli said they happen to be a company based in Germany. What's more, even though the ILS is still 60 percent functional, the unnamed German company would charge 90,000 Euros to fully fix it.
Two million USD was said to have been originally spent to install the system nearly ten years ago. But it is unclear if the current Afghan government is willing to shelve out the necessary funds to get it back in action.