New Delhi: Dense fog disrupted operations at
the IGI airport today throwing schedules of over 130 domestic
and international flights haywire.
About 50 flights were cancelled while around 18, 13
domestic and five international flights were diverted to
Kolkata, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Mumbai,
Bangalore, and Chennai when a thick fog enveloped the airport
late last night and early this morning, an airport official
said.
About 18 flights, mostly international, were rescheduled
and left for their destinations after a delay of six to seven
hours. Several domestic arrivals and departures were also
delayed by up to four hours, leaving a cascading
effect on the schedule of other flights.
The airport had witnessed shallow fog during the day
yesterday, but it did not disrupt the flight movements as
visibility was manageable and there was no problem in landing
and take-off till late evening.
Fog started to envelope the airport around 2000 hours and
the runway visibility reduced to less than 800 metres forcing
the airport authorities to implement the low visibility
procedures (LVP).
Thick fog descended on the airport around 11 pm last
night, reducing the general visibility to zero and runway
visibility to less than 100 metres.
During this period, some of the flights operated using
CAT-III B Instrument Landing System (ILS), while many others
were diverted to other cities.
The runway visibility was between 200 to 300 metres in
the morning on both the runways which are CAT-III B compliant
and can help an aircraft to land when the runway visibility is
about 50 metres and flights were operating under CAT-III B
conditions.
The LVP was finally lifted at around 11.35 am, more than
15 hours after being implemented. About 94 plane operated
during the period using CAT-I ILS, 31 using CAT-II, 67 with
CAT-IIIA and 35 using CAT-III B ILS, the official said.
In the last five days, flight operations at the Indira
Gandhi International Airport had remained uninterrupted.
-PTI
