KAMPALA - A NEWLY acquired air traffic control radar at Uganda’s Entebbe International Airport monitors large areas outside Uganda including parts of Rwanda, DR Congo, Kenya and Tanzania. According to Richard Mujungu Ruhesi, a senior official with the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (CAA),

the radar monitors flights within a radius of 256 nautical miles central from Entebbe (about 475 miles).

"It is a perfect radar that utilises monopulse technology, the latest so far,” Ruhesi, who is in charge of Communication, Navigation and Surveillance, said during a media tour of the airport on Tuesday.

Monopulse technology captures data at first impulse. The radar cost Uganda about seven million euros (approx. Frw3.8 billion).

Ruhesi said the station normally exchanges air space information with Kigali, Dar es Salaam, Nairobi and Kinshasa daily.

He, however, said the station’s role in regard to flights outside Uganda is limited to monitoring on the radar screen. "We do not communicate with those airlines whatsoever,” he said.
According to Ugandan civil aviation authorities, Entebbe has not had a radar of such magnitude since 1979.

Instead the airport has always relied on a military radar situated some thousand meters away.

The new radar was installed in August this year.

During the media tour, Israeli experts were fixing two other mobile military radars as gap fillers to boost security surveillance that would easily intercept threats over the Ugandan airspace.

The measures are in preparation of the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) due in Kampala next month.

"The mobile radars will be able to detect any airlines that our radar may not detect because of our geography (some areas are hilly whereas others are valleys).

We want to be very careful. Somebody could fly in without being noticed; that is why we are taking extra measures,” Ruhesi said.

The Queen of England Elizabeth II and 53 Heads of State are all expected to use Entebbe airport for CHOGM activities from November 14.

President Paul Kagame has also confirmed he will attend the Commonwealth Business Forum and CHOGM at the invitation of Kampala. Rwanda applied to join Commonwealth, a club composed of UK and its former colonies.

In a related development, the airport’s weather radar is not yet functional despite the country’s allocation of $40m to the refurbishment of most facilities at Entebbe.

A functional weather radar avails airlines instant information on weather, which increases safety in operating aircrafts in Uganda’s airspace.

About two years ago, an aircraft carrying the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement leader Col. John Garang
from Uganda to Southern Sudan crashed killing him instantly, and subsequent reports blamed the incident on bad weather.

However, Ruhesi said in case the weather radar is not yet complete by Commonwealth meetings, the station would rely on satellite surveillance.

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