Israel's airport halts takeoffs because of pirate radio interference

[donsu]

RSOE Emergency and Disaster Information Service


Israel, Ben-Gurion International Airport

Supervisors at Israel's Ben-Gurion international airport halted air traffic for the second time Wednesday because of interference in control tower communications from pirate radio stations.

Before midnight, all takeoffs were canceled after the pirate broadcasts disrupted all the frequencies used by air traffic controllers, airport official Uri Bar Lev told Army Radio. He said efforts would be made to land incoming flights, but if radio contact was impossible, they would be send to other airports. Earlier, takeoffs were stopped for an hour. Israel Radio played recordings of calls between the tower and an incoming airliner that were blotted out for five seconds at a time by the pirate broadcasts. This is a "clear danger," Orlev said, appealing to the government to put the pirates out of business. The same problem crops up about once a month. "These disruptions do not allow us to run the airport as we should," he told Channel 2 TV. It was not known when full service would be resumed.
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this is from an alert email from RSOE

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