Comments
Flight operations came to a standstill at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here today due to dense fog which reduced the visibility to below 50 metres and affected the schedule of over 50 flights.
The fog descended upon the airport last night and it became so dense this morning that the runway visibility dropped to below 50 metres on both the runways rendering them in-operational, an airport official said.
Two Jet Airways flights, one from Abu Dhabi and the other from Dammam, and a Lufthansa flight from Munich were diverted between 5.30 a.m. and 7.30 a.m.
According to sources, the pilots were trained to operate flights using CATIII B instrument landing system, which helps them to land a plane when the runway visibility is up to 50 metres.
Though there was no cancellation of flights, the schedule of over 50 flights was disrupted as no flight could take off from 6 a.m. due to runway visibility dropping to less 125 metres, the required minimum parameter for an aircraft to take off in low visibility conditions.
Visibility at the third runway (29/11) started to deteriorate from 1 a.m., forcing the airport authorities to implement low visibility procedures (LVP). The LVP was implemented on the main runway at 4.10 a.m.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.