Chennai airport sails through structural audit

Chennai airport structures deemed safe after audit, with plans for future safety checks to prevent accidents.

Ahead of the monsoon, an audit of various structures at Chennai airport was carried out recently and they were deemed to be safe.

Officials of Airports Authority of India (AAI) said the audit was done in the city airport following the collapse of a canopy in two airports in the country — Indira Gandhi International Airport and Rajkot (Hirasar) International Airport — which occurred in June this year. The incident in the New Delhi airport killed one person and left six injured.

AAI said, numerous airports in the country may go through such an audit to prevent any accidents in the future. 

Officials said the audit included checks of various structures in the city airport such as roofs of domestic and international terminals, canopies outside the terminals and the steel structures too. 

“We had invited experts from IIT Madras and Anna University but they were busy and unavailable at that point hence, the audit was done for two days by an expert from Andhra University. The report which was subsequently given to us said, all structures were safe,” an official said. 

But the report also pointed to the fact that there was some water leakage in some locations in the terminals and it has to be addressed. Efforts are under way to carry out this repair as well. Such audits are likely to become periodical henceforth, in a bid to improve passenger safety.

Nearly a decade ago, Chennai airport grappled with the issue of glass panels of the terminals breaking on numerous occasions but the problem was set right later; so far, in the new integrated terminal opened during the phase II modernisation project this issue has not surfaced. Officials said, even last year, when heavy rains lashed the city, there was no impact on the structures.