The Hindu : Fog delays flights

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 02, 2003

Other States

Other States - New Delhi

Fog delays flights

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI JAN. 1. Fog played spoilsport at Indira Gandhi International Airport on New Year's Day as flight operations came to standstill after low visibility made it impossible for aircraft to operate for nearly six hours this morning.

According to IGIA officials, visibility began to drop a little before 3 a.m. when it touched about 350 metres. In the next hour, however, the runway visual range fell to 100 metres. Since this was even lower than minimum range of the Category IIIA version of the Instrument Landing System, all operations had to be stopped. The last flight landed at 3-26 a.m. following which no operations were possible.

This, officials said, affected domestic flight operations, which start after 6 a.m. Most of these flights had to be rescheduled and some of the private airlines even ended up cancelling some of their operations.

Also, three international aircraft were diverted between 5 a.m and 10 a.m. In this period, officials added, only one aircraft -- Air Emirates (EK-512) -- landed using ILS CAT IIIA.

Visibility began to improve after 9 a.m. and Kuwait Airways flight (KU-381) was the first to land at 9-34 a.m. The first departure took place at 10-16 a.m. Domestic operations, however, started only around 10-30 a.m.

Despite a steady improvement in weather conditions, low visibility procedures could be lifted only at 11-40 a.m. According officials, all systems that operate during fog functioned efficiently.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Other States

Stories in this Section

A reminder of nexus between officials, politicians

Fog delays flights

Minor girl goes missing