Kannur: A commercial aircraft touched down at the yet-to-be inaugurated Kannur International Airport on Thursday. The Air India Express' 189-seater Boeing 738 descended into the runway in a smooth landing after six rounds of flying low, testing landing conditions.

Earlier, the Indian Air Force had landed an aircraft at the airport for calibration purposes. The current landing, involving a narrow-bodied aircraft, will kick off the final round of permissions required to throw open the facility, the fourth such in Kerala, to commercial operations.

The flight landed using the instrument-approach procedure prepared by the airport authority and is expected to make multiple landings and take-offs to ensure flight-worthiness and test the technical assistance essential for landing.

kannur-1

After a successful completion of flight validation, a report will be submitted to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), following which the airport will get the final permission.

The Kannur airport needs to get permission to operate the facility during any time and in any climatic conditions. The DGCA inspections that precede granting of airport licence began on Tuesday.

Runway signals, lights, firefighting equipment etc were inspected on Tuesday. The DGCA team monitoring the process, includes aerodrome standards directorate assistant director V Santhanam and joint director Ashwin Kumar Subramaniam.

kannur-3
Google News Add as a preferred source on Google
The comments posted here/below/in the given space are not on behalf of Onmanorama. The person posting the comment will be in sole ownership of its responsibility. According to the central government's IT rules, obscene or offensive statement made against a person, religion, community or nation is a punishable offense, and legal action would be taken against people who indulge in such activities.