CLARK International Airport Corp. (CIAC) has started the process of acquiring a new site for the installation of the primary and secondary surveillance radar for Clark International Airport.
“The government needs a new airport surveillance radar system as the existing radar facility was built 16 years ago and has way exceeded its technically accepted usefulness of ten years,” CIAC President Aaron Aquino said during a recent site inspection at the civil aviation complex.
Aquino said the modern radar facility project, which includes the supply, installation, testing, and commissioning of both the primary and secondary surveillance radar for Clark airport, costs P593.6-million and is expected to be completed by February 2023.
He added that the current radar site needs to be relocated in conformity with the government’s master plan for the Clark airport, citing technical issues such as height restrictions of commercial buildings surrounding the old radar facility.
“As recommended by the Caap (Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines), the new site of the radar project will be at Lily Hill, the highest point inside Clark. With a relocated radar system, CIAC will be able to continue the landside commercial developments within the aviation complex unhampered,” he said.
Aquino was joined by CIAC Vice President for Operations Irish Calaguas, with the agency’s project engineers and representatives from the Evercon Builders and Equipment Corp., the contracting company for the project.
Aquino noted that CIAC, the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, and the Clark Development Corporation are in coordination for the issuance of Site Possession for the relocated radar system.
The new airport surveillance radar project is part of CIAC’s airport infrastructure expansion program whose funding was approved via the General Appropriations Act of 2020 under the account of the BCDA, the CIAC's parent company.